The Little Girl Who Saw Things
by CarlieD
Summary: A visitor with a mysterious talent has sent Alice into a coma-like state, reliving her repressed human life. What started out as a simple problem, is quickly becoming more and more difficult, as Jasper and Carlisle both struggle with terrible truths...
1. Prologue: Alice Cullen, 2007

**The Little Girl Who Saw Things**

_A visitor to the Cullens with a mysterious special talent has sent Alice into a coma-like state, reliving her repressed human life. But what started out as a simple enough hurdle to overcome, is quickly becoming more and more difficult, as Jasper struggles with his feelings and Carlisle realizes a terrible truth._

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, so this is sort of like two stories in one. On the one hand, it's the story of Alice's human life. On the other hand, it's the story of the Cullens during this crisis. Names and dates at the beginning of every chapter indicate the POV and the year.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the Cullens or any of Twilight's events or characters for that matter.

**_

* * *

_**

Prologue (Alice Cullen, 2007)

_She isn't the most beautiful of our kind I've ever seen: average height, maybe 25 in human years, blood-red eyes, brown hair. But she doesn't seem a threat._

_She's coming to our property, and she'll arrive soon._

"Somebody's coming," I spoke aloud for the benefit of everybody else as Edward frowned at me.

"Who?" Carlisle asked.

_She's speaking, and her voice still holds a twinge of a British accent – more noticeable than Carlisle's, but similar. Maybe in her human life, she had been British, and judging by its disappearance, she's old. Maybe fifty years or more to our life._

"_My name is Devora," she said, looking at me. "I come to –"_

And then Jacob, Leah and Nessie entered the room. Growling with frustration, I rubbed my forehead. "Anybody who is _not_ 100% vampire needs to leave the room," I growled furiously, even as Jasper gave my arm a light squeeze in reassurance. "I can't _see_."

"Nobody expects you to do everything, Lissy," Jasper murmured softly into my ear, soft enough that nobody could hear his words. Nobody but Edward, who had long ago learnt to keep Jasper's pet name for me a secret. I could only imagine the ribbing Emmett would give the both of us if he found out. He would kill himself laughing if he knew that Jasper was less of the Southern gentleman than he believed. A true gentleman, in Emmett's mind at least, would never think to degrade a lady's name by butchering it from the original.

"Her name is Devora," Edward spoke up just then, and I sent him a grateful look. Much as I loved Nessie, and much as it didn't bother me as much as it had before her birth, when everything had been much less certain, she still gave me a furious headache if I was trying to concentrate on something. "We're not sure what her purpose is here." As I closed my eyes again and tried to refocus around Nessie, Jasper's fingers began kneading at the back of my neck comfortingly.

God, that helped so much. What had I done in my human life to deserve him – saved a burning houseful of orphans?

"But she's close?" Carlisle asked.

"Yes," Edward replied, picking up Nessie when she paused at his side expectantly. "She'll probably be here –"

"– within the hour," I managed to say tensely. "Possibly even the next few minutes."

As if in answer to my prediction, there was a soft knock at the door just then and I finished my thoughts aloud. "She's here."

Leah (probably eager to be out of the room full of vampires – she didn't handle our scent with nearly the grace and finesse that Jacob or Seth did) bolted for the door. "Well, whoever it is, is definitely a bloodsucker," she was muttering disgustedly under her breath.

I heard the door open, and again, I tried to see into the next few minutes, but Jacob and Nessie were still in the room, blocking my view. It drove me crazy, it really did – I could now empathize with how Edward felt being unable to hear Bella's thoughts.

But if I really tried, ignoring Jacob (who didn't give me a headache, because he was just a blank spot in the future), I could see the vague outline of something behind Nessie. Frowning and muttering under my breath, I tried to bring it more into focus.

"Hey, Nessie," Jacob spoke up suddenly, "how about you and I and Leah go outside for a while?" Nessie immediately jumped down from Edward's arms and ran off with her 'wolf-people', clearing up my vision enormously.

I owed that dog big-time.

_The room was dark. There was a crowd of people standing around me, murmuring something under their breath._

And then everything went black.


	2. Broken Down: Jasper Hale, 2007

**_Chapter 1: Broken Down (Jasper Hale, 2007)_**

"Alice!" I exclaimed as she went limp in my arm. Everybody whirled around at my exclamation (I could hear them even if my eyes were focused on her), and within a fraction of a second, Carlisle had reached us. "Alice!"

Carlisle actually stopped. "God!" he exclaimed. "What the hell can I do?" And the fact that _Carlisle_ – cool, calm, collected Carlisle – was semi-swearing in frustration didn't make me feel any better. In fact, it made me feel worse. "I have no way of knowing! I'd check for breath, but she doesn't breathe! I'd check for a pulse, but she doesn't have one!"

"Carlisle," Esme said softly behind me. "Calm down."

All attention in the room, at that point, shifted to the newcomer. "What the hell did you do?" Emmett hissed at her.

She seemed frozen for a moment, until Edward spoke. "She doesn't know," he said, his voice trembling in anger. "She doesn't do it consciously."

"What?" I asked tightly, gathering Alice into my arms. "Lissy, answer me," I whispered into her ear, her name catching in my throat as I brushed back the hair from her face. "Please…"

And at last, a sign of life. She moaned softly, so softly I don't think anybody else heard her, as her head turned slightly towards me. Esme noticed the movement, her expression changing to extreme relief as she squeezed my shoulder lightly.

I endured the gesture. I was still astounded, even after nearly fifty years, some of delusions that they'd allowed themselves to continue. I stayed here because _Alice_ wanted to stay. Without her, I was gone. In fact, I was figuratively already halfway out the door. This never would've happened if we hadn't come here, if we had remained nomads. This coven was a magnet for trouble.

Already, my mind was preparing for the worst-case scenario – in fact, I knew better than Edward how to get myself killed. And I wouldn't be doing some delusional display of vampirism in Volterra. The Volturi would be only too happy to kill me when they found out Alice was gone. She had been the more valuable of the two of us. Without her, I was useless to them, and Edward's stunt last year would've taught them a lesson about sending a suicidal vampire away.

Edward sent me a warning glance as he heard me. His wordless message clearly came through in his eyes in two parts: 'Don't do anything reckless'. And 'Don't hurt them'.

'Them' being Carlisle and Esme. Edward and I had an understanding. From the moment we'd first met in 1950, he'd known that I wouldn't think twice about leaving if Alice wanted to leave. I had no bond, no ties to this coven besides Alice, and my history of leaving covens wasn't exactly the epitome of delivering soft blows. Our understanding? He would keep his opinions about me to himself, I wouldn't voice mine aloud about him. Under no circumstance was he to tell Alice if I got tired of being here – I would stay until she wanted to go. And if I did end up leaving, I would break as gently as possible to them: this was Edward's family, and he would gladly rip me to shreds if I hurt any of them.

The diet was never the issue – though you'd have thought it was, given that my eyes had been pure red when Alice and I had arrived in 1950. The animal blood had been the answer for me all along.

"Lissy," I murmured, turning my glance away from Edward's and back to her perfect face. She was completely still: no useless breaths, no stirring, and she didn't even reward me with so much as another moan.

"Explain yourself," Carlisle growled to the newcomer.

"As best as I've been able to figure out," she began uncertainly, her scarlet eyes flicking back and forth between everybody in the room, "it seems as though I can trigger the release of repressed memories. I've never seen anybody black out by me walking into the room, though. I normally need skin contact for it to trigger, and nobody has ever blacked out before."

"I'd like to test that, if you don't mind," Esme spoke up quietly as she stepped forward.

"Esme, no," Carlisle said definitively. He caught her arm before she could go any further. "I'd rather not have anybody else here fall victim."

"Hold on," Edward said suddenly, a frown creasing his face. "I'm getting something from Alice. It… it looks like –" he continued his uncertain description, but I wasn't paying attention.

All I heard were the words 'Carlisle' and 'hospital', and I snapped. How dare he suggest that Alice would be thinking about such a flagrant disregard for the Volturi's one law? Alice knew better – she would never have thought such a terrible thing – what better way to bring the Volturi's entire wrath back down on us so soon after Renesmee than to go to a hospital, where machines would register no pulse, syringes would draw no blood, thermometers would register no temperature?

"No, it's not a modern hospital," Edward was quick to amend. "Older. It… it sort of looks like the hospitals from when I was a child."

"Early 1900s, 1910s, it's possible," Carlisle murmured as my mind started to race again, thinking over the multitude of possibilities. "If what Devora says is true, then it's a memory. Alice would've been human in roughly the same era as you, Edward."

"But why are you in the memory, Carlisle?" Rosalie asked worriedly. "You hadn't met Alice when she was human."

"Who knows?" Emmett contradicted. "Alice doesn't remember being human. For all any of us know, her name isn't even Alice."

"An entire _life_?" Devora asked incredulously.

I couldn't stop the slight, ironic laugh from escaping my lips as I kept my gaze on Alice's motionless face. "The first thing she remembers is waking up in a marsh somewhere in Mississippi. Nobody, human or otherwise, around for miles."

"Mississippi?" Carlisle asked, still frowning. "I spent the better part of a decade in Mississippi. Early 1900s. I'd have remembered meeting Alice, though…" If Carlisle had blood to drain, it would've drained from his face right then. "Oh my God."

"What?" I asked, looking up. "What?"

"I always wondered what became of her," he said, a slight stunned quality to his tone of voice. "I didn't put it together before because she was so young last time I had seen her… She doesn't look anything like she did. And they didn't call her Alice."

"What are you talking about?" I demanded.

"Didn't you realize it before, though?" Bella asked in confusion, speaking for the first time since this entire debacle had started. "I mean, she found that information last year…"

"What?" both Carlisle and I asked in unison.

"When you left Forks last year," Bella clarified. "Alice was doing research on the stuff James gave me. She found her name, her parents, her family, her admissions sheet…"

"She never mentioned anything about it," Rosalie breathed.

"So that's what she was doing in the library," Emmett chuckled. "And here I was, thinking she was just trying to distract budding philosophers."

I smoothed back her hair again, watching her face with a renewed tenderness. It was just like Alice. She didn't mention it for fear of her actions being misinterpreted as dissatisfaction with the life she had. She kept it hidden until she knew everything, and she knew what she wanted to do with the information.

Evidently, she'd decided to ignore it and go on with life as it had been.

"The date on her tombstone is the same date as her admission," Bella continued.

"Carlisle, what do you know?" Esme asked warily.

Carlisle sighed, running his fingers back through his hair as he dropped to the arm of the couch, still looking at Alice incredulously. "Her name was Mary. Or at least, that's what her parents called her. Mostly, everybody else called her Mary Alice. Her father was a doctor."

"You worked with him," Rosalie said, her eyes wide.

"The hospital there was small. We were the only two doctors in the area, so we used to work a lot of overtime together. Theresa – Alice's mother – used to bring the girls to the hospital if Henry was working late."

"Girls?" Emmett asked.

"They had two daughters. Cynthia was maybe a year younger, at most." Carlisle paused a second, an expression of self-disgust on his face. "Mary Alice was far more charming, far prettier and far better-liked. 'Charismatic' maybe isn't the right word to use when describing a 3-year-old, but I can't think of another. She used to concoct all sorts of stories, very realistic…"

"Her visions," Bella breathed softly.

"Everybody thought she was just imaginative. Even myself. They were never about people we recognized, or at least not at the time." When everybody looked at him, he admitted with a slight cringe as he met gazes with Emmett and Rosalie, "Stories about young men hurt on hunts and carried off by angels to – well, I don't think the word 'immortality' was ever uttered in the Brandon house. She called it 'forever life'. That's the one I remember best, because her parents thought it was such a wonderful allegory of death."

"That's exactly the way I described it," Emmett said in astonishment. "Like I was being carried off by an angel."

Carlisle sighed. "But the older she got, the stranger and darker the stories became. The closer they got to home. People started talking, especially the stories started featuring pale-skinned demons with red eyes who would kill humans and drink their blood."

"And the Volturi didn't come?" I asked roughly. For the first time, I had an idea of how Edward had felt when Bella had been human, and danger seemed to stalk her every step. Had Alice even had an inkling of realization as to the danger she had been putting herself in, exposing the truths of the vampire world to the clueless?

There was dead silence in the room for a moment. Finally, Carlisle spoke again. "I don't doubt, Jasper, that Aro may have had his eye on her. He had his eye on Alec and Jane for years. But he would've been waiting until she was grown – Alec and Jane were much younger than he would've liked." He hesitated again, and the flicker of self-disgust crossed his face once more. "I chose to stay as long as I could there, to keep an eye on her. There were others in our world, less scrupulous than Aro –"

In the split-second of silence following that statement, Edward inhaled sharply. "Carlisle!" he said, a degree of disbelief in his voice.

"I'll admit it, I toyed with the idea –"

"What?" the rest asked immediately.

Carlisle sighed. "I told myself it was for her own good. The things Aro or any other creator would've used her for – it still makes me shudder to think about the possibilities…"

I tuned him out for a second, thinking back to my early days in the South. What Maria – or any other leader – would've done for a vampire who could see the future, even a young one by human standards… I had to agree with Carlisle's train of thought at that time. I had seen Maria turn humans with extraordinary talents at young ages, sometimes barely out of the 'immortal child' range.

"What, Carlisle?" Rosalie and Esme both asked again.

"He was thinking of turning her," Edward said shortly.

Almost immediately, Carlisle jumped to his own defense. "She was old enough that one could've argued that she wasn't an immortal child. Bright enough that you could argue that she could be taught, despite her age."

"But you didn't turn her," Emmett said. "And you didn't leave."

"No," Carlisle admitted. "I decided that it would bring too much attention to me. Nobody suspected me – after all, her stories weren't about golden-eyed doctors. It would've been far too much attention if I had left when those stories had started – I was still so new there. And Henry was well-known in the area. If his daughter had disappeared and me along with her, the connection would've been instantaneous." He sighed again. "Henry and Theresa were very devout Catholics. Mary Alice was chastised for the demon stories – I believe she learned to keep those to herself. But the rest of her stories, though less demonic, were no less dark."

I was distracted briefly by a sudden realization: Alice's skin was no longer the same temperature as mine. She felt distinctively warmer, and as panic swept over me again, I pressed a light hand to her forehead. When I pulled it away, my fingertips were wet. She was sweating. "Carlisle!"

Everybody looked at me. I was so panicked by then, I couldn't even speak. I could see Edward frowning, trying to make sense of my jumbled thoughts. Finally, I managed to pull out the sight of the wetness on my hand for him.

"Oh God, she's sweating," Edward said simply. In a flash, Carlisle had knelt at our side, confusion and panic evident in his eyes as well as he saw the wetness on his own hand for himself. "Carlisle?"

"She's got a fever," Carlisle said, "but how is that _possible_?"

Devora spoke up, uncertainly, as if she feared retribution. As she rightly did – if one more thing happened to my Alice that wasn't normal, I was going to tear her to shreds and burn the pieces. "I've seen it happen on occasion. The person's body will respond to the memory as if it were still human."

"Well, snap her out of it," Emmett snarled, tightening his grip on Rosalie's arms. I could feel his anger and anxiety every bit as clearly as my own, and I wished he would just do what I couldn't at that moment – deal with the sadistic woman. Emmett would call her less pleasant names, and internally I was rejoicing at hearing the upcoming tirade.

"I can't," Devora said quietly. "If it follows the same course, she'll awaken when the memories end. In her case, when her transformation is complete."

Immediately, I recoiled with a hiss at the thought of watching my beloved Lissy going through the fires of transformation a second time.

"Jasper, calm," Esme said, though her voice held no real authority. I could feel everybody cringe and the sympathy flood the room – doubtlessly remembering their own transformations.

"Calm?" I spat out angrily, tightening my hold on Alice protectively. "Calm?! Damn it, Esme, look at her!"

"Jasper," Carlisle repeated warningly, and his voice held every ounce of authority he had in this coven as its leader. "Calm down."

The words had formed themselves in my mind before I'd even truly thought about them, and Edward had flashed over to my side and smashed his fist into my head. My whirling instincts, running a thousand miles a second while my mind's only preoccupation was Alice, had me nearly abandoning my post with her to attack him in return. In fact, I was halfway out of my seat when Carlisle repeated with a roar,

"Edward! Jasper!"

Our silent and violent exchange had surprised everybody in the room. They were used to fifty-seven years of us giving each other a relatively wide berth: our unspoken truce had been felt, however unconsciously, by the entire coven.

"What the hell was that?" Emmett laughed uneasily.

Edward and I simply both snarled at each other as I reluctantly curved Alice's limp body back into my arms. I repeated fiercely in my mind for him,

_Forget the truce. We are gone. You guys put her in far too much danger, especially as of late. We're leaving. If you want a soft blow, _you_ explain why we're gone to them._


	3. A Tiny Angel: Dr Carlisle Cullen, 1905

**_Chapter 2: A Tiny Angel (Dr Carlisle Cullen, 1905)_**

"Dr Cullen, David Speers is having trouble breathing," came the voice of Isabelle, one the on-duty nurses, behind me. Forcing a tired expression onto my face – after all, it was my thirtieth hour in a row on duty here, with a sudden outbreak of influenza keeping both Henry and I at the hospital – I looked up from the piles of medical records on my desk.

"Do you mind telling Dr Brandon that he's going to need to stay longer, unfortunately?" I said as I stood up swiftly. It was dangerous, especially given that Henry needed to sleep and eat, but there was no alternative. We could always both simply catch a few hours of 'sleep' on the cot we kept in the office for precisely this reason. I had hunted just the previous night; there was no trouble of thirst driving me away. Henry's wife would probably bring meals, worried as usual about hunger making us weak. "I'll go check on David."

I passed Henry in the hallway, however, and gave him the message myself. He simply nodded, dark circles under his eyes second only to mine, and continued towards our office. Probably to sleep – it had been nearly twenty-four hours since he'd slept.

Poor little David Speers – the infection had spread into his lungs. His time was short, any human could see that, but I could sense it as well. There wasn't much I could do, besides give him more blankets to keep him warm, perhaps some ipecac to try to clear up his respiratory passages, but it would only prolong the inevitable.

I truly regretted how breakable these little human children still were, even with all the advances in treatment, diagnosis and medicines since I was a child. In fact, how I'd made it through 17th-century London without illness was a mystery to me – my father would've called it a miracle, an act of God.

Maybe it was a good thing that he never found out what I was. What parent would want this for their child – immortality as the characters of horrific folk tales?

*~*~*

I pondered this as I slowly made my way back to our office after making my rounds of the crowded wards. I had done a lot of pondering lately, in my lonesome hours, toying with the idea of a companion. As I approached, however, I could hear the sounds of small girls laughing inside the office – Henry's wife must've brought their daughters to come see him.

And I could sense something more – a whiff of a human's scent, and it was undeniably alluring. Not unbearable, but definitely worrisome. It wasn't Henry, nor Theresa – though I'd never officially met his wife, I'd gotten a taste of her scent on his things around the office. It must've been one of the little girls.

Ironic, I thought to myself as I pushed open the door. A scent which would send any other vampire into a frantic frenzy, and it was me who found it first. If I had been a few centuries 'younger', perhaps, I could've been dangerous to the little girl. But now… now she was as safe as any human child could be in these times.

"Ah, Carlisle!" Henry exclaimed – he looked mildly better for a few hours' sleep. On his knee was one dark-haired little girl, her blue eyes sparkling as she continued her happy chatter, capturing her father's attention again. The second little girl was standing beside him, her hands clinging to his trouser leg – almost as though she was fighting for her father's attention futilely.

"I see you've slept," I said smoothly, my composure not breaking. Within milliseconds, I had determined that the first girl, who looked to be the older, yet the more fragile of the two, was the source of the excellent scent. "You must be Theresa," I said, glad for the cold air in the hospital as I extended my hand – the cold around here would explain the coolness of my skin. Unremarkability – that was the key to my lonely existence.

"Theresa, this is Carlisle, my godsend," Henry introduced us, delivering an affectionate hug and kiss to his elder daughter.

"I must thank you," she said pleasantly. "I actually see my husband on occasion ever since you came to town."

I laughed – another good reason, yet also bad at the same time, to be a bachelor in this field. I never had somebody at home waiting for me. But I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like, to have a loving wife to distract me from my thoughts in my endless hours away from work. To have children to play games with.

I allowed myself two seconds of fantasy of creating myself a family like that, before responding to Theresa's comment. "I do try to be of help wherever I go. So, Henry, do introduce me to your adorers."

Henry grinned, and I could tell he was glad I asked. The man _did_ love to talk about his children. "Well, this is Cynthia, my younger daughter," he said, putting a hand on the standing little girl's dark curls. "She's just turned three years old last month."

"Good evening, Cynthia," I greeted with a slight smile. Not too much – children always seemed to catch more subtle markers than adults did – but enough to make the little girl smile shyly back.

"And this little angel," Henry continued affectionately, and I knew exactly who the favoured daughter was at that moment, "is my Mary."

Ah, yes, the little Mary Alice. The entire hospital, the entire town even, had been buzzing when I'd arrived last month about her. She had fallen victim to a raging fever some time before, a fever so powerful that even her father had given up treatment. She had returned, however, from the brink of death. That would explain the look of fragility on her – doubtlessly still recovering her physical strength.

"Hello, Mary," I said, and was surprised when I received a bright, glowing smile in return. It was easy to see how the entire town was wrapped around her small fingers – I'd barely known her a minute and I already loved her, enticing scent quite aside. She did look like a living, breathing angel, with her alabaster skin and wide eyes.

"Only Daddy and Mommy call me Mary," she said, and her voice was high, musical – for a brief moment, I wondered if she wasn't perhaps one of us. "Everybody else calls me Mary Alice."

"Very well, Mary Alice," I acquiesced. For a second, just a fleeting second, I could understand how one could create an immortal child. A little girl as charming and pretty as this one, as a mere human – her allure as a vampire would be undeniably great. In fact, she might be old enough that I could probably argue to Marcus, Caius and Aro that she could be considered a mature vampire – mature, of course, meaning that she could be taught the laws and could abide by them.

I stopped that train of thought before it could progress any further when I caught myself envisioning the little girl dashing along beside me on the hunt, golden eyes sparkling. It wasn't possible – wasn't fair, at any rate, to remove the chance to grow up from a little girl as young as this.

"Mary, tell your father and Dr Cullen the story you told me this afternoon," Theresa prompted. "Carlisle, I brought in some dinner for Henry and yourself. You must be starving, all this time at the hospital…"

"Thank you, Theresa. That's very considerate of you," I said. "I may have some later, before I leave. I'm afraid I'm running low on groceries in my house. Haven't had the chance to replenish yet." Running low as in I had none. I never did.

"Mary, did you dream up another story for us?" Henry asked.

"Well, it isn't a story, Daddy, it's true," Mary Alice insisted. "You see, there's this man. He's not an old man, but he isn't a boy either. He went hunting in the woods one day, because his family was getting very hungry and he wanted to find some food for them."

"A good reason to hunt," I agreed solemnly.

"But when the man was hunting, there was a bear there," Mary Alice continued. "The bear got mad and hurt the man very badly. There's no doctors there, you see."

"This scary story, don't like it," Cynthia complained, covering her ears and burying her face into Henry's side.

"And when the man was hurting very badly, there was an angel who came. An angel from God," Mary Alice added, seeming to need to clarify who sent the angel. "She came and picked up the man and she carried him to God and they lived in forever life together. It's a true story," she repeated, eyes wide as Henry and Theresa both laughed.

"I'm sure it is, somewhere, Mary sweet," Henry agreed. "That's a wonderful story. Now, I'll kiss you both goodnight, and then I will see you tomorrow. Thank you for the story, sweet."

"Goodnight, Daddy," Mary Alice and Cynthia both chorused together.

*~*~*

"Carlisle, you must come over for drinks one of these nights," Henry said, looking up from his charts at his desk. "Mary is quite captivated by you. She has a storybook full of new tales to tell, complete with pictures." He smiled indulgently. "She'll be the next Bronte sister, my little Mary."

"Quite the imaginative little girl you have," I laughed, closing the last of my charts. "The stories sound so real at times."

"Like they could happen anywhere," Henry agreed.

"Well, I'm going to go make a round of the wards, do you want to come with me?" I said, standing up.

"Oh, very well, it's about time to walk around, isn't it?" Henry asked, standing up from his own desk. "You know, Mary told a wonderful little story the other day about you."

"Really?" I asked. "Do tell."

"Oh, I can only recall the gist of it – you know how those stories never quite sound right unless she tells them." Henry paused. "It was an innocent little story. You were out in the woods, with others. Three blonde women, two darker-haired – one man, one woman. Just talking as though you were catching up on news. Like family."

"Hmm," I said, a little surprised. Tanya and her sisters were coming for a visit, and the newest addition to their coven – one of the former Volturi guards, Eleazar and his mate Carmen. Could the child have –

"She must have overheard you telling me that your sisters were coming the other day. Didn't you say that they were?" Henry continued, and I returned my attention to him.

"Yes. That's right, that must be where she got the idea. My sisters and an old childhood friend, along with his wife. They should be arriving shortly, actually." I smiled slightly. "They live up north, I don't often see them."

I didn't think a human could hear that well, to get such an accurate description from down the hallway and through a closed door. Actually, I hadn't even described them. Or enumerated how many were coming, for that matter…

*~*~*

"Well, this is a quaint little town," Eleazar laughed as he settle back into the cushions of a couch with Carmen. "Not quite Volterra, but we can't all have Volterra, can we, old friend?"

I laughed. "No, Eleazar, no, we can't. So how are you finding the New World?"

Kate laughed at my old terminology. "It's not exactly new anymore, Carlisle, they've gone past the new, the rebellion and the revolution. They're practically their own country now – actually, they _are_ their own country now."

Irina and Tanya were both looking out the window at the streets below. "So what stories have you told them?" Irina asked.

"For all anybody who cares knows," I said with a smile, "my sisters and an old friend came to visit from up north."

"You know, it's a nice day," Kate finally declared. "We ought to go play some baseball."

"Where, Kate? The nearest clearing big enough for you is halfway to Texas," I teased.

"And they're probably all already claimed by the southern covens and guarded by newborn soldiers," Tanya laughed. "Carlisle, you pick the strangest spots to settle down in. I never would've even thought about going into the South. How long are you planning to stay here?"

"I'm not sure yet," I replied. "I wasn't thinking long, but there's a human child I'm a little concerned about."

"By concern, you mean…" Carmen prompted.

"I mean, I'm a little concerned that she may become Aro's next project," I said with a sigh.

"Uh-oh," Tanya said, looking at me sharply. "Carlisle, you're not seriously considering –"

"No, no, of course not," I said quickly. "It's just… well, it almost seems as though she has premonitions." Turning around, I rifled through a few papers – apparently Mary Alice's infatuation with me extended to gifts – and pulled out the one I was looking for. Holding it out to Eleazar, I leaned back against the counter and crossed my arms. "That was drawn as accompaniment to a story designed by a four-year-old girl who supposedly overheard me saying that my sisters and a friend were coming from down the hallway and behind a closed door."

"My God…" Eleazar breathed.

The picture Mary Alice had given me was an almost perfect replica of Tanya, Irina, Kate, Eleazar and Carmen.

"And the humans don't suspect anything?" Carmen asked incredulously.

"No, her parents write it all off as stories she creates from an overactive imagination and a tendency to eavesdrop," I answered. "But can't you see how intrigued Aro would be by this child?"

"My God, she'd be the jewel of his collection," Eleazar said with a shake of his head, passing the picture to Irina. "Right up there with Jane and Alec and Renata. Look how young he turned them – you said the child is four?"

"That's right," I said, "and I don't think Aro would hesitate if he thought there was a chance of somebody else taking her. She's just at that age where you could argue one way or the other."

"So what are you planning on doing, Carlisle?" Irina asked warily.

"Stay around as long as it's safe, keep an eye out for any trouble," I replied with a shrug. "The poor girl also the disadvantage of smelling absolutely delicious. Practically irresistible to any one of us who actually drinks human blood."

"Or just to anybody without as much inhuman self-control as you," Kate corrected.

"It's true, Carlisle. It's not natural, the amount of self-control you have," Eleazar admitted.

"Hmm," Tanya said. "Fated child. Of all the vampires in the South who _could've_ come through this town, she catches you."


	4. Immortal Soldier: Jasper Hale, 2007

**_Chapter 3: Immortal Soldier (Jasper Hale, 2007)_**

I knew that they had figured out that I'd left when I picked up the scent and sound of somebody chasing us.

I'd gotten enough of a head start that even Edward, the fastest in the coven, would need a few hours to catch up, so I paused in the branches of a tree, still cradling Alice, to figure out who it was. Upside of 57 years with them? I knew the best way to avoid any of them.

Listening to the sounds alone, I could tell that it wasn't any of the girls: the steps were too heavy. They weren't heavy enough to be Emmett. It was either Edward or Carlisle (probably more likely to be the former than the latter), or, more unlikely still, one of the wolves.

No, not the wolves. This was the sounds of human feet running through the forest at vampire speed. So Edward or Carlisle.

The scent wasn't always the best way to track who it was in this coven: we were so often in close quarters that I wouldn't doubt even I had some of Rosalie on me. If I were tracking by scent alone, I could've determined that the entire coven was coming.

But it was all about the quantity. Whose scents were most dominant. There would be traces of the others on the person coming after us, but the scents of the person themselves and their mate would be the more dominant.

Closing my eyes, I tried to concentrate on the task at hand. I couldn't stay long, because whoever it was, was closing the distance between us every second.

Carlisle.

With that determined, I started running again.

*~*~*

I had to stop nearly a day later, when Alice began writhing in pain in my arms. "No…" she moaned. "No, stop… I promise I won't tell any more…"

"Shh, Lissy, I'm here," I whispered, nestling her deep into my arms. "Shh. It'll all be over soon…" And it stung because I knew worse was coming. I didn't know what memory was causing her to do this right now, but I knew from that bastard James' account that shock treatments were coming. And the transformation – both excruciatingly painful experiences. She would be screaming in pain for days.

Oh, God, could I survive that? Just the moans of pain – and those would be only uncomfortable pains – were killing me to hear.

She moaned again, and I tightened my arms around her. "Shh, sweet Alice," I repeated helplessly. "It's not real anymore. You're safe."

"Stop, _please_…" she cried softly.

My head snapped up when I heard the rustling in the leaves of somebody approaching. Carlisle had finally caught up to us. "Go away," I called warningly. "You and your coven have caused enough damage."

"Jasper," Carlisle said slowly, pausing at the edge of the clearing. His emotions betrayed no hurt at my harsh statement, which confirmed my earlier theory: it wasn't Carlisle himself Edward was worried about, it was Esme. And what hurt Esme hurt Carlisle – now _that_ was a concept I understood all too well. "Just listen to me for a minute, all right?" He approached another few steps, stopping when I tensed and hissed at him. "May I –"

"No!" I snarled, distracted again by Alice's pained cry. "Alice, sweet, it's okay…" I whispered to her, horrified when I saw bruising begin to form on her forehead. And not just light bruising, severe bruises. "Oh, God…" I groaned.

"Jasper, let me see," Carlisle repeated quietly. I shook my head again stubbornly. "Jasper."

She cried out in pain again, and as the cry subsided, I could hear her mumbling something semi-coherent under her breath. It sounded like it was Latin – a language that I, of course, hadn't gotten around to studying yet. And much I hated to admit it, right now Carlisle was my best bet for finding out what was plaguing my beloved.

"Fine," I muttered darkly. "Don't touch her," I warned as he approached.

Carlisle knelt down next to us, reaching out his hand to turn her face towards him.

"I said don't touch her," I snapped. Carlisle withdrew his hand immediately. "What's happening to her?" I asked softly, smoothing back her hair from her face to show him the bruising.

Carlisle frowned as Alice's mumbling became more and more coherent. "Jasper, I want to check something, but I'm going to need to touch her."

"Since when do you ask permission?" I muttered, though I nodded. Carlisle gently pushed up the sleeves of Alice's shirt, revealing similar bruising and scrapes on her wrists.

"Jasper, right now you've made it pretty clear that you don't want anybody near her. She's in pain, you're scared. I understand that." Turning his attention to her ankles, he brushed aside the hem of her skirt to show me the same bruising and scraping.

"What the hell is happening to her?" I demanded shakily.

"I think she's reliving an exorcism," Carlisle said quietly. "Restrained by the wrists and the ankles to stop the demon from using her body to fight back. If she was struggling against the restraints, that would cause these marks. The crucifix pressed into her head, hard…" He sighed, an ironic grimace on his face. "If anybody knows what an exorcism does to the human body, it's me."

"She's been begging for them to stop," I said softly, laying another kiss on her head. "Promising not to tell any more."

Carlisle sighed again. "One of the church's symptoms of possession is seeing visions of the future, or of things that the person couldn't possibly have knowledge of. Given how devout her parents were, I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised that they tried exorcism before abandoning her."

Alice was relaxing back into my arms again, the pain ceased for the moment.

"It looks as though she's okay for the moment," Carlisle said quietly.

"For the moment," I emphasized grimly. "Why are you here? I thought Edward would've made it clear that Alice and I are leaving. As if the departure wasn't clear enough."

"No, he did," Carlisle assured me. "No love lost between the two of you, if I might add. I just came to talk it over."

"Well, I'm not interested in talking, so you can go back."

"I promised Esme I wouldn't come back until I'd talked to you, and I'm a man of my word," Carlisle answered with a shrug. "So I'm going to talk, and if you want to listen, go ahead."

Grumbling under my breath, I readjusted Alice's position, watching her motionless face worriedly, senses tensed, ready for the next cry of pain she uttered.

"You know, I can see where your distrust is coming from," Carlisle said; I pointedly ignored him. What did he know about me, about my concern for Alice's happiness? "Maria created an immortal soldier. Your first instinct is fight and to protect what's yours. For a long time, all you had was fight. Correct me if I'm wrong, but somehow I don't think Maria ever left you the impression that you were anything important to her."

That stung, as true as it was. It was all about the conquest to Maria, not the occupation. She could win a city with any vampire at her side, so long as she had her army of newborns. I had been expendable, replaceable. Nothing important, nothing special.

"And then you met Alice," Carlisle continued, without once glancing at me; he could've been talking to the tree for all he cared. I continued watching Alice, and before I could stop it, a slight smile made its way onto my face as I remembered the stormy day I'd met her. "And she made you feel for the first time in a century. She made you feel like you were the only person who mattered."

Not entirely true, I argued in my mind. She'd already seen them in her visions before I'd even met her. The second she'd gotten me out of that diner and irrevocably wound around her little finger, she had gone on the hunt for them. Our entire relationship had been developed in the shadow of this goddamn coven of danger.

Carlisle must've seen the resentment that flickered across my face at that point – the internalized resentment Edward had lived with for 57 years. "Am I wrong?" he asked quietly.

It was hard to describe. In a way, he was right. In a way, he was terribly, terribly wrong.

"Jasper," he said, understanding beginning to creep into his voice. "Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but you've never had her to yourself, have you? Even before you came to us, we were always there. Always in the background."

"I don't hate her for it," I said defensively.

"No, of course not," Carlisle agreed. "You could never hate her. But you hate _us_. Because we took her away before you even had her." He paused – he had hit the nail on the head, and he knew it, as much pain as it caused him to say.

"I thought she was just being too idealistic," I said softly. "The way she talked about you, it was like she expected you to be perfect. I knew that there was a chance that you wouldn't even accept her."

"You were hoping we'd turn you away," Carlisle breathed. "Hurt her then instead of breaking her heart later."

"Oh, I knew you'd break her heart either way," I replied. "She had gotten so attached… there was no way around it."

"But then she'd be yours. Entirely yours."

And then it was as if his words, soft and accusing, had opened the floodgates to all my bottled-up resentment. "And then we got there, after two years of chasing you around the country…" I stopped, taking a breath to calm myself. "And you were all everything she'd dreamed of."

"It was like she'd forgotten all about you, wasn't it?" he asked. "I still remember. I remember you coming out first from the driveway, holding her back. Making sure there was no danger. Then she came in, and you stayed back. When Esme and Rosalie took her in, you disappeared."

"I had to get a grip on myself," I said. "And then… I swear, it was an accident. I was thirsty. Too thirsty, and it's always worse when I'm stressed…" Why was I begging, I wondered to myself. Why was I apologizing for a mistake made sixty years ago?

"Was that when Emmett and Edward found you?" Carlisle asked. I nodded slightly. "And Edward's probably been in your head ever since, keeping tabs."

"We've had an agreement," I said quietly. "He keeps his mouth shut, I keep mine shut. Alice is happy. That's what I really want. Everything else is meaningless."

"But the last few years have you questioning how safe it really is here with us," Carlisle finished. "Jasper, it's your first instinct in a crisis. Protect what's yours – Alice. I've seen it in action. When Bella figured out the truth, it was your first response: the Volturi might be coming – protect Alice. Victoria came from Seattle with those newborns – protect Alice."

"That could've happened anywhere, with anyone," I replied automatically, saying the words I knew Alice would say if I'd ever dared to speak these thoughts aloud. Which led me to my second train of thought: why wasn't he _angry_? I was all but accusing him of purposely putting Alice in mortal danger! Accusing him of stealing her attention and her affections! God, I was being such a heartless, cruel, selfish _cad_, that I was practically demanding Alice's attention for 24 hours a day for eternity! Why wasn't he _angry_?!

"But it's given you the reasonable doubt you need," Carlisle prodded gently. "Because you know in the end, she'll let you have your way, because she knows you have only _her_ interests at heart."

I couldn't take it anymore. "God, why aren't you _angry_?" I demanded.

Carlisle actually sat back and laughed. "I should be asking _you_ that question!"

"I _am_ angry!" I exclaimed.

"But not at _us_, Jasper!" Carlisle laughed again – he seemed to find this genuinely funny. "Sixty years is a long time to keep a truce with somebody hasn't been exactly clean on keeping his end. God knows Edward's slipped up on 'keeping his mouth shut' in the last sixty years. You're angry with _yourself_, Jasper! You're mad because you're jealous and you know you have no reason to be!" He allowed himself a few more seconds of laughter before he continued in a more serious tone, "Maybe it's time for you and Alice to take a break from us. A few years away to regain some perspective with no pesky Cullens around to interfere."

"And what were you planning on telling everybody else?" I asked.

"Everybody else has done it too, Jasper," Carlisle reminded me. "Edward left for a few years. We kicked Emmett and Rosalie out for the better part of a decade. At the rate they're going, we may end up kicking Edward and Bella both out for a while again. We don't have to make it into any more serious than that if you don't want to. I'm assuming that we're trying to avoid upsetting Esme." He sighed and shook his head. "You know, I appreciate the thought, I really do, but she's tougher than you all give her credit for. You're only spoiling her with all this coddling."

I sighed, dragging my fingers through Alice's soft hair as I thought over his words. "I'll think it over, Carlisle."

"That's all I'm asking, Jasper," he said quietly, standing up. "Now, are you going to sit out here and suffer in silence, or are you going to bring her back to the house and spread the pain?"

I thought about it a moment, then said, "Might as well spread the pain."


	5. Temptation: Drs C Cullen & E Card, 1909

**_Chapter 4: The Temptation (Drs Elliott Card and Carlisle Cullen, 1909) _**

**Dr Elliott Card**

"Dr Card, we have a new patient arriving today," Naomi said to me, waiting at my side with a folder.

"Very well, Naomi, leave it there," I said harshly, in a foul mood because I hadn't fed in weeks. Maybe Raul had been right: I was too meticulous about whom I killed. Human blood was human blood. "I'll take a look at it later."

"All right, Dr Card," she said in surprise, skittering away.

_Stregoni benefici_, I thought to myself disgustedly. Yeah, right, like that accurately described how I was. Help until you find the right scent, then stalk and destroy. Start all over again with a new name, new credentials; move frequently because eventually people start referring to you as the angel of death.

I would have to feed very soon. This new patient, I decided as I grabbed the file. They would be the poor unfortunate soul to die of natural causes in my care.

_Patient's name: BRANDON, Mary Alice_

_Date of birth: May 22, 1901_

_Previous residence: 1393 Courthouse Rd, Biloxi_

_Ailments: Patient claims to 'see things' from the future. Hallucinations frequently include the presence of red-eyed blood-drinking demons living amongst humans. Preliminary diagnosis is psychosis, referred by Biloxi Hospital's Dr Henry Brandon. Placed in low-security wing by recommendation of Biloxi Hospital's Dr Carlisle Cullen – patient not considered a danger._

_Follow-up contact: None_

_Emergency contact: None_

Hmm. A psychotic little girl who saw red-eyed, blood-sucking demons living amongst humans? Maybe not psychotic – perhaps just psychic. A clairvoyant, was that how they referred to them in those irritating human traveling acts? Ironic, that the clairvoyant with her red-eyed demons would be sent to the one hospital in the world with a vampire as resident doctor. Amusing, even.

Maybe I'd keep her around for a little while, see if the talent was genuine. Had the Volturi had caught wind of her? I would enjoy taunting that old fool Aro with her if he had – him and his lopsided morals. He would want to wait until she was grown, but by that point, it would be too late for the little Mary Alice.

Nicholas Gaudine in the east wing's level-two ward had been annoying me as of late. He could die an easy death tonight. Actually, perhaps not such an easy death. A bloody, violent death – I could get William Henderson transferred to the medium-security wing in the same breath. The madman would admit to any crime if it meant he would get transferred somewhere that inflicted pain on him. I loved that masochistic old bastard right now.

"Naomi?" I called, getting to my feet. "When is this Mary Alice supposed to be arriving?"

"Early to mid-afternoon," Naomi replied, jumping up from her seat. "Poor little girl, I read her file. Her own father, abandoning her here… He's not even dropping her off here himself. Left that task to his colleague."

*~*~*

**Dr Carlisle Cullen**

"Dr Cullen?" Mary Alice asked uncertainly, looking up from her plate at the diner in Jackson.

"Yes, Mary Alice?" I asked, still distracted by my own disturbing thoughts. Nobody would notice if the little girl didn't show up at the asylum as planned. Henry had requested no contact – he said that she was past help, that he and Theresa needed to concentrate on Cynthia now.

She was still young, too young in my mind, but Alec and Jane hadn't been much older when Aro had turned them. How could I condemn an innocent little girl to that sort of fiery pain because she was strategically _valuable_ to too many people, or because I was tired of going home to an empty house?

But how could I deliver an innocent little girl to such a dark place – an _asylum_, with genuinely crazy madmen – where I had no way of knowing what would happen to her once those heavy doors closed behind me? She was so young, and she wasn't crazy – there was no way a truly crazy child could've known the things that she did. She was caught between two worlds and right now, I had complete control over her eternal fate. It was a sobering thought.

"Am I going to Jackson because of what I see?" she asked. "Because nobody believes that they're real?"

I sighed. "Yes, Mary Alice. Your father doesn't think they're real, and it concerns him that you see these things."

"What if I didn't see them anymore?" she persisted, and the innocent hope in that phrase was heart wrenching. "I could pretend like I don't see them."

"I don't think that's going to make a difference now, Mary Alice," I said gently. Oh, God, I couldn't do it. I couldn't deliver her to the asylum. But I had to. I had no other option, if I wasn't going to change her – I had sworn to Tanya that I wouldn't, before they'd left. My extended family – I still thought of them as sisters in this life – were adamant that it wasn't moral or ethical to change children, even if the Volturi couldn't call them 'immortal children'. I had to agree.

She was silent for a moment. Then she spoke again, and the tone in her voice told me that she'd seen my decision. "You're not going to change me, are you?" she asked softly.

I'd learnt long ago not to question her when she spoke like this. I thought for sure that she had figured out a long time ago what I really was. "No, Mary Alice, I'm not."

"Then I suppose we should go," she said seriously. "Before you change your mind again."

"Yes, I suppose so," I agreed.

*~*~*

**Dr Elliott Card**

My dark and fiendish plot was set in place with excellent care by the time the car pulled up to the front doors of the admissions and records wing.

Then I saw the man on the driver's side of the car. Tall, blond, pale skin – like mine. Too perfect to be human. Somebody who would recognize me for what I was.

Great. That put a snarl in my plans.

*~*~*

**Dr Carlisle Cullen**

I nearly drove off again when I saw him. Great. Little girl who sees vampires killing people and she's sent to an asylum with a vampire standing guard.

Tinted lenses in the frames of his glasses. That would disguise the colour of his eyes, if he never took them off at work. But I could see even with the tinted lenses that his eyes were dark. Wonderful. Not only was he a vampire, he was a thirsty vampire, and I was delivering a helpless child with the most appetizing scent I'd experienced in nearly three hundred years.

That did it. I paused with my hand on the ignition. "All right, Mary Alice. It's your choice. You can stay here or you can come with me." Damn Tanya. Damn what I'd promised her. We had eternity to feud – she'd get over it eventually. Mary Alice would charm her in a second.

"I don't think it's supposed to happen yet, Dr Cullen," Mary Alice said quietly, her blue eyes steady on mine. "I think I'll be safe here until you come back. You'll come back for me with Edward."

She thought. She _thought_ she'd be safe here with a bloodthirsty, human-bloodsucking vampire and lunatic humans until I came back for her with – _who_?

"Don't worry, Dr Cullen," she said as she tried to open the door unsuccessfully. "I saw it."

"All right, Mary Alice. I'll come back for you."

And so I delivered the little lamb to the hungry lion.

*~*~*

**Dr Elliott Card**

It had to be my lucky day, I thought again as the scent of the child's blood bombarded my senses. God, she even _smelled _delicious. She was too _perfect_, and for a moment I thought he'd already changed her, and he was just bringing her here to taunt me.

But no immortal had ever smelled that tempting.

"Dr Card, I presume?" the man asked tightly, one hand on the girl's shoulder as they approached.

"That would be me," I confirmed, astounded that his eyes were a clear golden colour. "Dr Cullen?"

"Yes," he replied. Oh yes, he knew what I was.

"I must ask how you get your eyes to such a colour," I said pleasantly. "It would be ever so _convenient_."

"I'm here for the _benefit_ of my patients," Dr Cullen replied coldly. "I don't prey on them."

Maybe this was the one the humans called _stregoni benefici_. How odd, though, to discover a second of our kind in this field – surely he couldn't resist feeding on a patient every now and again. I would have to research what would turn a vampire's eyes such a colour. "Hmm. You're very odd, Dr Cullen. Well, I'll take over from here. Come, Mary Alice, we'll find you a room."

The little human's eyes darted back from myself to Dr Cullen once more before she stepped forward uncertainly. She paused, evidently wavering in some sort of resolve.

"My offer still stands, Mary Alice," he said quietly.

She hesitated there for a few minutes. Then she seemed to gather up her determination and stepped towards me. He smiled sadly for a moment, then said, "And my promise still stands. Be careful."

"I will," she said, and internally I exulted again: my God, she even _sounded_ delicious. It was too perfect. "Goodbye, Dr Cullen."

*~*~*

**Dr Carlisle Cullen**

I couldn't believe I'd just done that. Maybe I really was a monster beneath the façade. God! I mean, could I not _see _the fervor in that madman's eyes? He was going to kill her, and he was going to enjoy every second of her agonizing death. And I'd simply handed her over. God, I hated myself.

Sighing, I sped up ever so slightly – I did so wish this stupid car would go a little _faster_ – and headed for Ohio. I wondered what she meant, I would come back with Edward. Who was Edward?

Maybe she had seen more than she let on. Would I maybe find a coven where I was headed? Another like myself, who would band together with me to guard this talented little soul?

Too many variables, too many unknowns. Maybe I should head back and reclaim her now. I didn't like the look that Dr Card had in his eyes. God, to think of a lunatic like him loose in a hospital filled with medicine's most vulnerable patients…

Yeah, I was a monster.


	6. Girlie Wolf Thoughts: Leah C, 2007

**_Chapter 5: Girlie-Wolf Thoughts (Leah Clearwater, 2007)_**

The bloodsuckers were back. Evidently the leader had managed to convince the warrior to come back with his half-dead mate.

_You know, you _could_ call them by their names_, Seth piped up. My pesky little brother had arrived not long ago to visit. _They might not dislike you as much if you treated them with some respect._

_I don't tear them to shreds. I think that's respect enough, Seth_.

_So what's wrong with Alice?_

_Some other bloodsucker came and knocked her out with some super-secret power. Reliving her life or something like that. Her mate threatened to leave the coven with her._

_Jasper threatened to take her and _leave_??? _Seth's astonished tone did nothing to bolster my mood. I was all excited about two bloodsuckers less to worry about and then the leader had to go after them. _Why?_

_Why did he leave or why did he come back? The answer to both is 'I don't know'. Jacob and I came back to the house after it all went down – and besides, do I _look_ like the mind reader? Apparently we missed a bloodsucker fistfight between the warrior and the mind reader, though. I'd have given my right arm to see _that_._

_EDWARD HIT JASPER?!_

_God, Seth, you don't have to howl like that!_

_Why do I miss all the good stuff???? God, I mean, it's a like bad soap opera._

_Exactly why you should stay in La Push, Seth. Somebody always dies in a soap opera. Personally, I'm leaning towards the fortune-teller –_

_Leah, those are my _friends_! And they feed and clothe you, so don't knock the Cullens._

He had a point. The bloodsuckers had reached a compromise with Jacob and I. So long as they didn't touch any of it once purchased, we would make use of the clothes and food. It did get annoying after a while to wear the same ragged, dirty clothes all the time and I hated hunting with a passion. The bloodsuckers had even gone so far as to provide somewhere comfortable to sleep: a room for each of us where none of them went in. A vampire-scent-free room – my sanctuary.

Life was beautiful in that room.

*~*~*

The rest of the bloodsuckers had gone hunting – apparently the other males were intent on throwing the offending visitor out of the state in retribution for what had been done. The only ones left were the warrior and his little mate. Jacob was busy cooking dinner in the kitchen for us – I hated to admit it, but kitchens and I really don't get along all that well.

I stopped at the doorway to their room, looking in to see what was happening. I didn't step inside – after all, they'd abided by Jacob's and my request to stay out of our rooms and away from our clothes. The least I could do in terms of respect was not foul up their rooms with my scent. Bad enough the common areas stank for both sides. The only one who didn't mind one way or the other was Nessie, and call a spade a spade – the kid was a freak in more ways than one (still couldn't seem to figure out what exactly she was – human, bloodsucker, wolf-without-actually-being-Quileute…)

He was stretched out on his stomach beside her, eyes seemingly glued to her ice-white face. One hand was gently stroking the edges of her perfect features – it must be like touching stone. I'd never really understood how they could all stand to touch each other, or how when Bella had been human, how she could stand to have her beloved bloodsucker so close. It would've been like hugging a refrigerator! But I supposed it all felt the same to them. No different than if Jacob and I hugged – we ran the same temperature, so it would feel natural.

I couldn't help but watch for a while, to see the visible ache on his stone face as he traced the path with his fingers once more, kissing along the trail his fingertips left. He was whispering something into her skin, something so low that I couldn't make it out. It was a different side of the warrior, one that I hadn't even dreamt existed. By now, I was used to the fortune-teller doing all the PDA's with anybody near enough and who didn't sprout fur when they got pissed. The warrior just didn't strike me as the kind of person who would do this.

"Hey, how's she doing?" I asked quietly; he jumped, though my approach couldn't have been a surprise to his super-bloodsucker senses, and looked up. "I mean, besides the obvious comatose state."

He relaxed slightly, one hand still caressing her face. "Carlisle thinks that when she's still like this, she must be reliving the relatively uneventful stages in her life. It's encouraging, that there's so much of nothing, I suppose. It's probably better than I would be, reliving _my_ human life."

"Didn't – didn't you say that she had been in an asylum, though?" I persisted, wondering when the lunatic-speak would start.

He nodded silently, a tense expression coming onto his face. "I'm trying to prepare myself for it. Eventually she's going to start reliving shock treatments. And then her transformation…" A sound that sounded almost like a distressed moan escaped from his lips as his face darkened.

"Is it… does it hurt?" I asked uncertainly. "Being bitten?"

"Imagine roasting alive for three days, except your nerve endings never get burnt off, you don't fall unconscious and your body never actually burns away. You're begging for death, screaming for it. You want to cry, but you don't have the water in your body to produce the tears, the fires have burnt it all away. The entire world slips away and you're in pure hell. And all that because you got distracted by a couple of pretty young girls in the dark of night, and decided to be chivalrous." That last part he muttered more to himself than to me.

"Was that what happened to you?" I asked, leaning back against the doorframe and turning around as Jacob appeared next to me with a plate of food for both of us. "Thanks, Jake."

"Hey, no prob. Dishes are yours, though," Jacob said through a mouthful of meat.

The bloodsucker scoffed. "Yes, more or less. When I was human, it was the Civil War. I joined the Confederate Army when I was sixteen, lying about my age. I was a major within a few years, and my superiors sent me to Galveston, to evacuate the women and children. But when I was out on patrol one night, I ran across three girls, the oldest maybe 20. They were beautiful, and I didn't think there was any danger." He stopped when his little mate moaned softly. He waited, watching to see if it would turn into anything. When it didn't, he looked back up at us. "I don't even know what they told my family. They probably just wrote me off as missing in action, a prisoner of war. I haven't even dared try to look up the information."

"When did that happen?" Jacob asked, swallowing his bite before asking.

"1864. I was 20," he replied. "I went straight from one war to another. Do you remember the army of newborns that came to Forks last year?"

"Can I _forget_?" I muttered, though we both nodded.

"Imagine twenty forces of that size or bigger, fighting for control of one city. And with far better leaders than Victoria." Jacob and I both shuddered at the thought. "Exactly."

"Okay, so if you're, like, 165 years old," Jacob asked suddenly, "how old does that make _her_?"

The bloodsucker actually laughed a little. "She's 106. We think she was likely born the same year as Edward, which was 1901. Nobody's really entirely sure. Carlisle and Edward were going to do a little digging into the asylum records when they get back, see if they can find out what happened. According to the official records, she died when she was eight. She was 18 or somewhere in that area when whoever created her did the deed, pardon the expression –"

"So there's about a decade unaccounted for in there," Jacob finished. "Maybe he sprung her and forged the records."

"That's what Carlisle thinks," he replied with a nod. "Our kind, especially the ones who live in human society, are exceptionally good at forged documents. Or least know where to find good ones."

"Okay, here's a stupid question I have to ask," Jacob said, changing the subject again. "I'm really intrigued by this whole age-difference thing. So, immortal years included, who has the biggest gap?"

"Carlisle and Esme," the reply was immediate.

"How much?" I asked curiously.

"Uh, you'd have to ask Carlisle to be sure, but I think it's somewhere around 250 years between them."

"Smallest gap."

"Rosalie and Emmett. A week."

"Seriously?" Jacob and I both asked.

"Yes," came the big bloodsucker's voice behind us. Both of us jumped and whirled around to see both him and the blonde standing there.

"And there's 255 years between Carlisle and Esme," the blonde added.

"Damn, that's a long time," Jacob muttered.

"Get used to eternity, you're in it for the long haul," the big one laughed at him as he and the blonde pushed past us to get into the room. "Jasper, go hunt. Seriously, your eyes are coal. Rose and I will sit with her for a while."

The warrior shook his head, returning his attention to the motionless woman beside him. "We'll go when she wakes up," he said softly.

"You're not doing Alice any good by torturing yourself, Jasper," the blonde said quietly. She didn't flinch in the slightest when the warrior snarled at her warningly. "Don't snarl at _me_. I could _whup_ you in a fight."

The big one snorted. "I'd pay big money to see that."

"Ten on Jasper," came the mind reader's laugh from behind me.

"Ten on Rosalie," the leader added.

"Oh, not Rosalie versus Jasper. Just… Rosalie in a fight," the big one amended. There was laughter from the rest of the bloodsuckers except her and the warrior. When she glowered at him, he laughed again. "Come on, babe, it would mess up your hair. Wreck some clothes. Maybe even break a nail, and those don't grow back, remember?" He grinned as she rolled her eyes, crossing back over to her to kiss her passionately.

"Oh, please don't make me kick you out again," the mother pleaded.

*~*~*

I could barely stand it. An entire house filled with bloodsuckers who basically all imprinted on each other. Then Jacob and Nessie… it was disgusting.

Seth was busy chirping away to me outside, catching me up on all the latest La Push pack news: Sam and Emily's wedding, Jared and Kim's engagement, Paul and Rachel's shotgun wedding (Jacob was still raging inside to Bella). Embry had imprinted on some girl up on the Makah reservation. Charlie had asked Mom and Seth to move in with him (Bella didn't know yet, he wasn't sure how to break that one to her…).

"Not sure how I feel about that yet, actually," Seth continued blithely. "One hand, I kinda like Charlie. He's cool. Other hand, I don't really like the image of him and Mom –"

"Okay, I don't like it either, so don't bring it up," I interrupted. "Tell me something that doesn't have to do with somebody's undying love for another person."

"Still bitter over the whole girlie-wolf thing?" Seth asked in astonishment. "Hey, maybe you have more to learn out of this whole wolfy-thing than the rest of us. Ever think of that?"

"Seth, please," I said.

"Umm… Forks High School sucks?" he offered.

"It's gotta be better than the school on the rez," I said, smiling. He was a pesky little brother, but he was so sweet.

"Actually, it's kinda cool. Everybody's kinda scared of me, 'cause I'm, like, two feet taller than the rest of them and I'm practically, like, the Cullens' little brother…"

"Not mention the rez rep," I laughed.

"Yeah, that doesn't hurt either." Seth grinned. "I haven't been beat up since my first day when I trounced that Fanter guy. I'm pretty proud of myself."

"Wow, look at you, tough guy," I laughed.

"Hey, Seth, Edward says you have something to tell me about Charlie?" Bella asked, coming out onto the porch with Jacob still raving behind her.

"Oughta go back and rip the bastard's throat out… except that would hurt Rachel…."

Seth's news about Mom and Charlie was interrupted, though, by a bloodcurdling (for those of us who _had_ blood, anyway) scream from the – well, I supposed I ought to start calling them by their names if we were 'practically related' – from Jasper and Alice's room.

"Uh-oh," Seth said, glancing at me.

"Sounds like she's gotten to the shock treatments," Edward murmured worriedly. "I'd better go. It's going to take Carlisle, Emmett _and_ me to restrain Jasper."


	7. Dancing Around Destiny: Dr E Card, 1911

**_Chapter 6: Dancing Around Destiny (Dr Elliott Card, 1911)_**

"How was the morning?" I asked as I shrugged out of my coat, gloves and hat: I did hate having to cover up like this when the sun was out. "Any incidents to speak of?"

Naomi looked up. "Matthew got into a big fight with one of the night nurses just before I came on-shift. Dr Garrity confined him to his quarters for the day. Stephen was transferred to the medium-security wing earlier this morning."

"Hello, Dr Card," came Mary Alice's delightful musical chirp from beside Naomi – for the first time, I realized she was sitting at the desk with her.

"Good afternoon, Mary Alice," I greeted in return. "What are you doing up here at the nurses' desk?"

"I was told to stay here," she replied, her arm covering the drawing she had in progress. "Hannah is being rather dangerous today."

Ah, yes, Mary Alice's truly psychotic roommate with a deep desire to kill the little clairvoyant to rid her of the extraterrestrials. There were days I wondered if the patients in this hospital wouldn't succeed in killing Mary Alice before I could safely turn her. I supposed I could turn her anytime now; she was now at the age of Aro's little collection of guards. However, her talent seemed to intensify the older she got – imagine what she could do as an adult!

It was a good thing, then, that my little pet project was so charming and adorable. She had the entire staff in the low-security wing wrapped around her small fingers. At the slightest hint of danger, they had her safely out of harm's way.

"I'll arrange with Dr Whitman to have Hannah transferred by curfew tonight," I told Naomi. "Well, Mary Alice, can you show me your drawing?"

She hesitated. Then she held it out.

I nearly blew my cover looking at it. Her drawing was a perfect replica of another vampire I'd met in Mexico prior to my arrival here in Mississippi. The second-in-command of a Conquistador in Monterrey known as Maria. He was Southern states, probably around Civil War era – she'd gained many followers from this area around that time. What had been his _name_?

"Mary Alice has been working on that all day, Dr Card," Naomi said, a hint of affection in her voice. "Tell Dr Card about that picture, Mary Alice."

"His name is Jasper, Dr Card," she said. "He's a soldier in the army."

"He's not dressed in army uniform, though," I pointed out. Yes, Jasper, that had been his name. Was I in danger of an invasion?

"Well, he doesn't want to be in the army anymore. That's after he leaves the army, Dr Card," Mary Alice said.

Oh, so perhaps the Conquistador's second was simply leaving. They still hadn't quite caught the concept of making their tools feel needed in the southern armies. Soldiers after the one-year mark left, seconds turned on their partners and made their own armies – or simply retired, as Mary Alice seemed to think.

Still – what was to say that Maria hadn't caught wind of my little clairvoyant? Perhaps Jasper had decided that he needed to build his own forces, and Mary Alice would be an excellent place to start.

"She's quite talented, isn't she, Dr Card?" Naomi asked, as Mary Alice left to go towards the courtyard. "I haven't seen skill like hers since the painters of the 18th century. So realistic, so life-like – I mean, I can practically hear the noise in that diner." She gestured to the picture of Jasper opening the door to what seemed like a diner.

"Maybe the pictures seem so life-like because she believes that what she sees is real," I theorized, flipping through the other pictures. I saw with a jolt of sickening realization that the strange golden-eyed one who had dropped her off here two years ago – Carlin? – was featured in a number of the drawings. It always seem to revolve around the same faces, though there were others sprinkled in amongst them. Once, I thought I'd even seen a flash of the Volturi in the background.

"She seems so ordinary, though, Dr Card," Naomi disagreed. "I don't think there's anything wrong with her. She's imaginative, and like most little girls, perhaps she's let her imagination run just a little too wild. That father of hers seemed just a tad prone to overreaction to me – I mean, it's not like she's claiming to be _God_."

"Well, insane or not, Naomi," I said with a forced pleasant smile, "Mary Alice is here now."

*~*~*

I had just returned from a spur-of-the-moment hunt – rather unsatisfying, actually, but most meals were unsatisfying since I'd gotten the scent of Mary Alice in my system – when my telephone started ringing. Sighing, I went to pick up the receiver.

"_Dr Card, we need you down at the hospital. There's been an incident."_

*~*~*

If I'd had a heart, it would've stopped when I arrived at the hospital. There was smoke everywhere in the low-security wing, patients running amok in the courtyard.

"What happened?" I yelled at Dr Garrity as he burst out into the courtyard, looking frazzled.

"Robert Sarrasin set fire to that box of papers Mary Brandon keeps in her room. The flames spread so quickly – the fire department says that they may not be able to stop the blaze in time. Can you round up the D-section patients?"

"What about Mary Alice?" I demanded even as I was automatically rounding up patients for a head count. "Is she all right?"

"That little demon went insane!" Dr Garrity exclaimed. "Started screaming in ungodly pitches, attacking him and anybody who got in her way. Tried to go back into that inferno over a dozen times to find those damn pictures! I had to sedate her and transfer her to the medium-security wing." He yanked up his dirtied, torn and singed shirtsleeve to show me a deep bite mark. "She bit me."

*~*~*

"Dr Elliott Card, I'm here to consult about a transfer," I said to the nurse at the front station.

"To or from, Dr Card?" she asked, not even flinching as a girl's terrified scream of pain echoed through the hallway.

"To," I replied. "The patient arrived here earlier today."

"Name?" she asked, the screams continuing.

"Mary Alice Brandon, from the low-security west wing, A-section."

"She's in the treatment room at the moment, Dr Flaherty's in there with her. Straight down the hallway, third door on the right."

"Thank you," I said, heading down the hall purposefully.

*~*~*

"We don't run things the way you do down in your end of the hospital, Elliott," Dr Flaherty said tersely as we stood outside the room. "She is a serious risk to herself and to others. Did you see the damage she did to Roger Garrity tonight?"

"_Please_, Liam," I scoffed. "She's no risk unless provoked. You leave her to her devices and her visions and her drawings, and there's no problems. She's been here two years and I haven't received so much as a complaint from either patient or staff."

"Fine," Dr Flaherty sighed, stepping aside. "Go ahead. See what your perfect little pet patient really is. She's staying here, Elliott, there's no getting around that."

"Thank you, Liam," I said coolly as I opened the door. "Mary Alice?" I called softly.

My poor little pet was curled up into the farthest corner of the room, trembling uncontrollably – likely the results of the shock treatments.

"Mary Alice, it's just me," I repeated gently, advancing into the room. "It's Dr Card. Don't be afraid…"

"No, go away," she sobbed, flinching away. "I don't want you in my room." As I came closer, her head snapped up and she hissed, "_I know what you are_."

I kept my composure as I asked, "And what is that, Mary Alice?"

"You're a demon," she snapped, pressing her back harder against the wall as I reached out. "You kill people and drink their blood. It's what you eat. And you want to kill me."

I laughed slightly, waving Liam back when he entered the room. "Mary Alice, if you start saying things like that, people are going to think you're crazy. Do you know what happens to crazy people in here?"

"I never should've stayed here," she whispered. "I should've gone with Dr Cullen."

"And what if Dr Cullen was a demon too?" I asked.

Mary Alice shook her head emphatically. "He's not a demon. He's an angel."

"Elliott, enough, we have to put her back in the chair," Liam finally said, pushing past me to grab Mary Alice's arm. "Clearly the first round of treatments didn't work."

"No!" she screamed, struggling against his grip as Liam pulled her down the hallway again. "No, please, don't, I'm telling the truth! _I'm not crazy_!"

I was furious as I left the ward. I would have to break her out of here soon. If she stayed in there too long, the shock treatments would ruin her. They'd succeed only in creating a catatonic rag doll out of her.

Robert Sarrasin would be found the next morning, dead in his room.


	8. Without A Little Pain: Esme Cullen, 2007

**_Chapter 7: Without a Little Pain (Esme Cullen, 2007)_**

Alice must've screamed for hours, her body tense with the memory of that pain. Renesmee had gotten so worried, so panicky with the scene that Jacob, Leah and Seth had all taken her out of the area. Rosalie and Bella had both retreated into the city, unable to bear listening to it any longer. Carlisle, Emmett and Edward were all busy holding back Jasper – he was ready to kill somebody, as anguished as he was.

Finally, I'd had to leave. I couldn't watch anymore. My daughter was in pain and there was nothing I could do about it. It was torture to know that fact, to know that people had hurt her, had tortured her because they couldn't understand the things she saw. It had been easier when we didn't really know anything, when we could pretend as if it hadn't happened. Memories like _this_ _ought _to be repressed.

It was much like the memories of Charles. I tried not to think about it – and the venom from when Carlisle had saved me had helped somewhat with that. I tried to pretend as if they didn't happen, as if I couldn't remember the years of trying to fight him off, the years of being extra-cautious around him, of flinching away every time he touched me. The years of begging God to have somebody kill him overseas during the war – probably the only wife in the area who was praying for her husband to _not_ come home. But then he did, and it was twice as hard as it had been before.

I had never really told Carlisle the truth about my human life. He didn't _need _to know. Nobody really did. Edward had found out inadvertently when I had first joined them, but to his credit, he had never mentioned it when Carlisle was there. My oldest, yet youngest son was such a purebred gentleman.

"Esme?" his quiet voice came from behind me as I tried to push back the memories coming to the surface as another one of Alice's piercing screams echoed from down the hall. "Esme, darling?"

"What are you doing here?" I asked softly, laying my head down in his lap. "What about Jasper?"

Carefully, gently, he started combing his fingers through my hair, as he answered, "Jasper has made it abundantly clear that he wants to be alone with Alice right now." He sighed, his mind clearly off in another place as he continued to lightly trace his fingers around my face.

"She'll be all right, though, right?" I asked him.

"Yes, I think so," he replied with another sigh.

"Carlisle, what are you not telling me?" I asked, sitting up.

He hesitated a moment, his dangerous teeth – the teeth which had freed me from my black hole of life and brought me into the sunlight of my existence – gnawing at his lower lip, and I backed away slightly. Whatever it was, it was bad. Carlisle alone of my chivalrous men told me the whole story. As gently as possible, but always the whole story. For _Carlisle_ to withhold information, it was nothing short of catastrophic news… "Esme, when Alice wakes up…"

"What?" I asked. If my heart still beat, it would've been pounding.

"When Alice wakes up," he repeated, still hesitating. "She and Jasper are leaving."

"Well, of course, they both need to hunt," I said, not understanding the meaning behind his words. Why would he hesitate like this for such a simple fact of our existence?

"No, Esme," he said simply. "They're not coming back." He waited while those four little words, so sweet and innocent and benign each on their own, sunk into my mind. His eyes, wide and golden and begging for my forgiveness, kept steady with mine. "Jasper's made his decision."

"What decision?" I asked, my voice going higher as I literally felt the walls of my world collapsing around me. "Carlisle, why?"

Why, indeed. Why would they leave – my little happy-go-lucky Alice, who'd loved us before she'd ever met us; Jasper, our strong, silent soldier, who'd thrown such great effort into living this new life? I couldn't piece together anything to make sense of what he was saying. It just didn't make sense – why would they leave after years trying to find us?

"Esme, it's nothing personal," he said quietly. "This whole situation… it's…" and here he stopped again – censoring? Finally he continued, "Let's just say it's bringing up a lot of old insecurities."

Ah. He wasn't censoring, per se, he was trying to explain without breaking confidences. Typical doctor. Jasper had given it to him straight, and now Carlisle was stuck trying to explain without betraying the trust Jasper had shown in him. "And they can't be dealt with _here_?" I demanded.

"No, Esme, they can't. And for that matter, Alice is going to have a lot to process when she wakes up." He sighed, closing his eyes as a flicker of self-hatred passed over his perfect features. "I wouldn't blame her if she never wanted to see me again, considering it was me who threw her to the bastard who did this to her."

Oh, so really, at the end of the day it wasn't about Jasper's insecurities or Alice's trauma at all. It was about Carlisle's eternal guilt.

"Carlisle, you couldn't have known that it was going to happen," I soothed, pulling him into my arms.

"Oh, I did," he murmured, not fighting my embrace. "I knew what he would do to her the second I saw him. The bastard's eyes were black as coal. He was a lunatic. God, I still don't understand why I _left_ her there!"

"Shh…" I soothed again, stroking the back of his head as he buried his face into my neck.

"I was fighting with myself the entire way," he continued. "Nothing about it was right. I couldn't send an innocent little girl to that hospital. I couldn't end an 8-year-old girl's life. I couldn't break my promise to Tanya. I couldn't break my promise to Henry."

How Tanya figured into this whole scenario, I had no idea, but I kept my mouth shut. "Carlisle, you couldn't have done anything…"

"Nobody would've cared if she hadn't shown up," he whispered. "The hospital would've questioned for a day or so. Nobody would've noticed. And when I got to that hospital, and I saw what was waiting for her, I told her to decide for herself. I told an _8-year-old_ child to determine her entire eternity!"

"Shh…" I repeated, rubbing his back. "In the end, it worked out the way it was meant to, my love. Things never work out quite the way they're supposed to without a little pain, Carlisle." I thought about my past, about my parents. What if they'd rescued me from Charles, instead of telling me to be a good wife? It would've saved me years of heartache, yes, but I would've never left him to save my child. I wouldn't have had and lost my tiny little Jonathan, and I wouldn't have jumped off that cliff. I never would've gotten Carlisle, or any of my beloved children.

I thought about Rosalie and Emmett. If Rosalie had never gone through what she did, if she'd simply gone on to marry Royce King as planned, she never would've saved Emmett from that bear. She probably never would've even met him. The King boy likely would've turned out like Charles, but worse – with the status and the resources to find her and destroy her reputation if she'd done what I did. Her parents, I didn't doubt, would've reacted like mine: _'stay quiet, be a good wife'_. Her life would've been in ruins. And Emmett… in nearly 75 years, I'd never once heard him mention his human life. It was as though his life never really began until 'his angel' rescued him. But I couldn't imagine that he hadn't left somebody behind: a strong, dependable, good-looking boy like Emmett must've had a girlfriend, a fiancée, a wife he'd been out in those woods trying to provide for. And a decent person like him would've been wracked with guilt – leaving behind that girl in Tennessee, the one he'd settled for having, because he'd found the one around whom his world revolves.

I thought about Edward and Bella. What _hadn't_ they gone through for each other? She had left her mother, he had risked our exposure. He had put himself through fires hotter than hell just to be near her. She had gone through the deepest valleys when we'd left. They both struggled with the added dynamics of Jacob when we had returned to Forks. They had both risked death time and again. Bella had very nearly died bringing Renesmee into the world.

And yet if any of us had changed just one small decision, just one, none of us would've ended up where we were today.

*~*~*

I went to check on Jasper and Alice when I hadn't heard any sounds from their room for a few hours. Carlisle was stretched out on our bed, having requested to be alone to wallow in self-hatred.

"You can't wallow for long," I whispered to him, leaning over to kiss him lightly on the lips. "I'm going to go check on the kids, all right?"

There was a grumble from somewhere in Carlisle's throat.

"This is _not_ your fault," I repeated before I left.

Sighing, I closed the door behind me and walked down the few steps to Jasper and Alice's room. Knocking lightly on the door before I opened it, I looked inside to find Jasper curled up against her side, the back of his hand stroking her face. "Jasper?" I asked softly.

He looked up. "Oh, hello, Esme," he said quietly, eyes drifting back towards Alice. "I think she might be almost ready to wake up," he said, a degree of pitiful hope in his voice. "She's been still for quite some time."

"Jasper, can I talk to you?" I asked as I sat down across from him on the other side of Alice. Sighing, I caught a stray lock of Alice's hair and pushed it back behind her ear. She was so easy to love, my Alice. Maybe _too_ easy to love: unlike Rosalie, Alice had no defensive barriers. It had gotten her into trouble in the past: in those few months when we'd tried to avoid any sort of gossip, telling the younger ones to keep their relationships private. After the ugly, bloody debacle in Great Falls, Carlisle and I had decided that maybe it wasn't the best idea. Jasper and Emmett had both been more than happy to return to staking their public claims.

Jasper, on the other hand, took time to love. It was hard to say, but it was true. He just wasn't the sort of person you loved from the moment you met him. You liked him, yes, but you didn't immediately love him as you did Alice. Maybe it was just a natural defense of his after a century of warfare, but you had to let him soak in, let him get under your skin. And sometimes I worried that he thought maybe he meant less to us than Alice did, or that Alice was loved and he was simply tolerated as an inevitable byproduct of Alice.

He was watching me for only moments before he said, "Carlisle wasn't supposed to tell you. Nothing's really set yet. It all depends on what Alice wants."

"Don't blame Carlisle," I said with a slight smile. "I pried it out of him. Jasper, about your –"

"It has nothing to do with you guys, Esme," Jasper said quickly. "Honestly, it's all me."

"I just wanted to let you know that you always have a place here, Jasper, no matter if you leave or not," I said quietly.

"Thank you," he replied, tensing as Alice stirred. "Alice? You waking up, honey?"

"I wouldn't think quite yet, Jasper," I reminded him. "I don't think she's gone through the transformation yet."

"Bella was saying that James had said that she had hardly even noticed the pain," he persisted stubbornly. "Maybe she just never registered that it hurt. She could've…"

Just then, however, Alice let out another scream and there was the horrible sound of something tearing. Like the sound of ripping flesh.

Jasper flinched as he gently tilted her head back. And there it was, on her neck: a pair of crescent-shaped wounds.

Alice screamed again and as Jasper gathered her trembling body into his arms protectively, he murmured, "I had hoped…"

"Just take heart, Jasper, it's almost over," I said softly. "Once you get through this, it's done. Alice will be back."

"Doesn't make now any less difficult," Jasper muttered in reply.


	9. Flight and Pursuit: James Delaney, 1920

**_Chapter 8: Flight and Pursuit (James Delaney, 1920)_**

Honestly, the quirks some of our kind came up with. I mean, it was honestly amusing to watch him play at being doctor and God: deciding who would live, who would die.

Victoria had made me promise to share my prey with her when I finally caught it. They always tasted better when I tracked them down. That wasn't a problem for me: I was just looking forward to the fight. Because he would fight. The old one would fight to the death for that crazy girl he'd become so enamored of: he was fighting the other humans for her even now.

I'd caught a whiff of her scent on his coat as he was entering the asylum one evening. Intrigued by it, I'd gone inside to see what the source was.

The whole place was covered in the scents of humans: hundreds of human beings – young, old, male, female, patients, doctors, alive, dead, catatonic… It was just as good, perhaps, that Victoria had chosen to stay behind. My lovely Victoria had absolutely no sense of discretion when it came to our meals.

Closing my eyes, I breathed in deeply, searching for the scent which had been lingering on the old one's coat. I found it within seconds, drifting around the end of the long, dark corridor. It was swirling around the scent of the old one.

"Elliott," came one nurse's stern reprimand as she walked briskly down the hallway to where the old one was standing outside the door. "Come on, Elliott, you know that Liam's going to report you if he catches you out here once more."

"I would gladly welcome his challenge," the old one said quietly. "The hospital board is reviewing Mary Alice's case as we speak. She may well be back in my care by the end of the night."

"Be that as it may, Elliott, right now she is still Liam's charge and he has made it clear that you are not to be anywhere near this ward."

"Very well," the old one muttered, turning away. He looked up as he passed me, and the look in his eyes as he saw me waiting there at the door was enough to convince me. "I'm sorry, visiting hours are over," he said to me coldly.

"Oh, of course, I'm sorry," I said, playing the human game. "I'll come back tomorrow."

*~*~*

As soon as we had left the hospital, he turned to me. "You leave this hospital alone!" he hissed. "This is _my_ hunting ground!"

Victoria emerged from the shadows, a snarl upon her lovely face as she joined me. "James –"

"Come," I said briskly, taking her by the arm. "We'll return tomorrow," I murmured into her ear. "You will have your feast, my love, make no mistake. And she promises to be a true delight for your tastes."

Victoria smiled back at me, turning around to smirk at the old one staring at us in fury. He narrowed his eyes and let his lip curl back from his teeth in warning once more before turning on his heels and returning inside.

*~*~*

"James, you'll bring her tonight?" Victoria repeated, her dark eyes boring into mine as she pressed her body against me.

"I promise, my love," I said yet again, kissing her hungrily. "We'll have fresh blood tonight. Don't run from me, Victoria, while I'm gone."

And with that, I ran in the direction of the mental hospital again, keeping the scent of the patient foremost in my mind, along with the scent of the doctor.

There was nothing unusual. At least, nothing unexpected until I caught the scent of the patient three blocks from the hospital. It was too strong a concentration for it to be transfer. No, my prey had left her cage, accompanied by the old fool. Growling under my breath, I wheeled around and took off in the new direction, following their scent through the streets and the dark alleyways, outside the city limits and deep into the humid marshes.

Finally, they'd stopped. I could hear the old one whispering to her.

"_I promise you, pet, nobody will ever hurt you again. You and I, together, we'll make them regret every time they ever put you in that chair. Every second they made you spend in that dark room."_ There was no reply from the girl, and I circled around to get a look at her. Not that it really mattered, seeing as she'd be dead in a matter of hours, but Victoria _did_ like it when her meals at least looked nice.

She reminded me of a child, in a way, though she must've been at very least in her late teens. Maybe it was the look of pure innocence on her face, even with the expressionless, vacant eyes. Dark hair, cropped short by women's standards – probably sanitization methods after the influenza outbreak a couple of years ago. The eyes were a muted blue, the kind that probably sparkled as a child. She was small, both in height and weight.

"_One small thing, Mary Alice?"_ he requested hopefully, his lips already at her neck, poised to tear into her as soon as he'd finished this sickening little monologue. _"Just a little favour… Tell me what you see. What do you see for us, little pet?"_

See?

The girl spoke finally, after a long silence. Her voice was a soft, lilting cadence. There was only the slightest hint of the southern accent in it. _"Fires,"_ she said. _"Fire, everywhere…"_

"_No, no, pet, there's no fires here,"_ he said patiently.

"_Yes, fire. I can't see anything else. Just fire."_

"_That's the transformation, Mary Alice. There's no real fire. It just feels as though there is. Tell me what comes after the fire…"_

She stopped, a smile flitting across her face. _"Jasper."_ And the way she said the name, her voice wrapping around every syllable lovingly, told me that this Jasper was something special – perhaps even her mate. _"Jasper's there."_

The old one's face twisted in undisguised fear and disgust. _"No, Mary Alice. Jasper will not come. Jasper doesn't even know you. There's me. Only me."_

"_No, Jasper will come,"_ she repeated. _"Jasper's there. You're not there. You go with the fire. It burns you up. Very soon."_

Now the old one's expression turned to fury. _"Perhaps the treatments have just twisted your vision around, my pet,"_ he said tightly. And with that, I made my move.

I burst through the trees, aiming for the old man's jugular. I knew there would be no blood, but if I could get him far enough away, and torn apart enough to give me time to grab the little human and run… Victoria and I would have her finished before he could reassemble himself and catch up.

"No!" I heard the old fool growl, and he moved at the last second, pulling the girl with him. He closed his mouth around her neck and tore into the flesh before I could turn around and aim for him again. "She is _mine_!" He looked up from her neck, the blood dripping down his chin in a ridiculously perfect imitation of the humans' Dracula.

I snarled in fury as the sweet scent of her blood filled the air, mingling with the acidity of his venom. How dare he ruin my hunt like that? I couldn't drink of that blood _now_…

He would pay for this.

*~*~*

I scoffed as I kicked the last of the body pieces into the bonfire. "Should've listened to your little pet, old one," I muttered rebelliously, casting a brief glance at the trembling girl behind me. I hadn't once heard her cry out, scream as Victoria had when I had changed her. Perhaps her time in the asylum had deadened her to the pain.

Maybe if I was lucky, the flames would engulf the girl too. She was of no use to me. She was no longer a viable feeding source. Maybe one of the southern Conquistadors would take her. I didn't care.

She whimpered as I passed her, muscles tense and body writhing as she managed to gasp out a name, pleading in her voice. "… Jasper…"

*~*~*

"The old fool changed her," I fumed to Victoria after I'd managed to find another acceptable human. Two of them, in fact.

"And?" Victoria asked irritably – my replacements hadn't been to her liking.

"And I left the stupid newborn in the marshes with the fire. I hope she burnt."

Victoria laughed slightly, sliding into my arms as she said, "You would hate to ruin your perfect track record with a survivor…" And then she kissed me, and I forgot all about the stupid, inconsequential little human I'd left on the brink of death.


	10. Beautiful Stranger: Alice Cullen, 2007

**_Chapter 9: My Beautiful Stranger (Alice Cullen, 2007)_**

It was the first thing I saw when I woke up: his face, concern in his pitch-black eyes. The way his face broke into a relieved smile when my eyes finally focused on the beauty and perfection of his face – the face which had hovered constantly in my mind since I was 10 years old. "Jasper…" I breathed, a smile making its way to my lips as he reached his fingers to my face.

"Hey, Lissy," he said softly, affectionately as he traced my face with his fingers, finally pulling me in closer to kiss me. "Welcome back."

"How long was I out?" I asked, faintly recalling the world going black.

"Oh, a few days at least," Jasper murmured, kissing me again. "I thought you were never going to wake up. I thought for sure it was going to kill you…" His voice shook slightly. "Baby, don't ever leave me like that again."

"Every day of forever, Jazz. I meant it in 1949, and I mean it now," I replied with a smile. I wrapped my arms around him happily, snuggling into his chest. I had my Jazz back. Everything else was meaningless.

"Oh, God, Alice, I was so scared," he whispered into my hair. "When you started screaming like that…"

"I was screaming?"

"Screaming bloody murder," he affirmed. "And when you started reacting to the memories as though you were human again, and Carlisle –"

The second he'd spoken the name, it was as though the rickety dam had broken, and all the memories came flooding into my brain at once. All the old memories, all the old visions, all the new visions, all the visions that I'd missed in the days that I'd been unconscious, all the memories of the activities surrounding my motionless body…

"Lissy?" he asked, when I tensed without thinking. Without thinking, because I had no brain capacity _left_ with which to think. Everything was used, overused, overworked… there was too much _stuff _in my mind. "Lissy, talk to me."

Even the calm, soothing waves he was sending me weren't working.

I could only manage a moan of distress as I closed my eyes and tried to stop them. At least long enough to decode the visions and discard the old, useless ones. They kept coming, never ceasing, never slowing.

"Is it the visions, sweetheart?" he asked gently.

"Too much… too many…" I said with clenched teeth. "Can't… think…"

_My father, laughing as he lifted me onto his lap and kissed my forehead. Carlisle watching us from the desk across the room, a smile on his face and a thousand visions struck me at once. So much had been hanging in the balance just then._

_Emmett and Rosalie – I recognized them now, Emmett bleeding and losing life as Rosalie cradled him in her arms and raced through the forests back home, back to Carlisle._

_Watching Carlisle, and thinking that I knew what he was. He was the demon, but different. An angel in a demon's body._

_Feeling my mother strike me across the face when I told her about the demon I'd seen in Jackson._

_Fighting against the belts holding me down as the priest prayed again, and finally giving up the fight, whispering the Actus Contritionis because I knew that it was what they wanted me to do._

_Crying in my room at night because I'd seen my best friend dying and nobody would listen to me._

_Seeing the looks Carlisle would give me, like he knew what I saw was real. Like he was thinking about what he could do to help, and millions of visions bombarded my mind. A pivotal point in my history – in _our_ history._

_Hearing my father and mother whisper about the asylum, listening to my father and Carlisle fighting over it in their office._

"Alice…" Jasper whispered again, his voice faint through the memories.

_Leaving Biloxi, and trying to make sense of the way the visions kept changing every few minutes. One minute I was at the hospital, the next I was running with Carlisle in a forest, the next crying in pain, the next back at the hospital…_

_Understanding that he didn't know what to do. That he was fighting with himself._

_Seeing Dr Card at the front doors, and understanding that it would happen either way. That my days as a human girl were short. Still hoping that Carlisle would take me with him to Ohio._

"Jasper?" I heard Carlisle's voice from the doorway. "Is she awake?"

"Yeah," Jasper said, still cradling me against his chest, rocking me as though I were a child. "But there's too much information in her mind. All the memories, all the visions, they're all hitting her now. She can't process anything…"

_Screaming in pain as my roommate struck me again, drawing blood. Her eyes were wild, her words mad, her strikes powerful. Crying as a nurse pulled me out of the way, taking me to their desk in the middle of the ward. Smiling at my saviour as she sat me up on the desk, dabbing some alcohol gently on my cuts._

_Sitting at the nurse's desk with my sketchpad and my pencils, carefully recording every small detail about my beautiful stranger who had smiled at me so lovingly and who had spoken my name with such awed tenderness._

_Fire, everywhere. The entire ward, up in flames, and my pictures – my pictures – were there. I had to get my pictures. They were all I had of my family I didn't have yet. I had to have my pictures. Sinking my teeth into Dr Garrity's arm when he pulled me away again. He didn't understand – nobody understood. I had to have my pictures._

"Alice, what's wrong?" Bella asked worriedly.

I moaned again, trusting Jasper to be my mouth. He had never failed me yet.

_The chair. The chair where I would scream with pain, and they would just hurt me again. The chair where I lost sight, where I lost my mind's pictures of my family. The fear and the panic as I would scramble to regain those precious, fleeting images when they had dragged me back to my room. Terrified when I would lose more and more every time they put me in that chair. Clinging desperately to the vision of my Jasper walking into that diner on a rainy day._

_The horrible day when I finally realized that I had been terribly wrong. That Carlisle wasn't coming back for me. That the other doctors were stopping Dr Card from seeing me. That I was trapped here in this silence and darkness for the rest of my life._

_Bearing the chair's jolting pains in silence, letting it steal away my visions. Letting it take away the things that would never be. Because nobody cared about me anymore. Nobody would notice or care if one day my body just stopped._

I heard Edward let out a soft groan as he came in. "Okay, I'm sorry, I can't be here," he said quietly. "God, I'm tuning her out and it's giving me a headache…"

"Edward," Carlisle's voice came, and it was tentative. Maybe even scared. "Can you tell what she's seeing?"

Edward paused for a second, then sighed. "The shock treatments. They would make her blind, make the visions stop for a while. It terrified her, because sometimes the images wouldn't come back. Every time they shocked her, she lost more." He stopped for a second. "She held onto that vision of you walking into the diner, Jasper, with everything she had."

There was silence for a moment, while Jasper's lips pressed kisses against my forehead, whispering the words "… love you…" over and over again in a voice so low, I could barely understand him.

Then Edward spoke again, a tremor in his voice. "You broke your promise."

Carlisle inhaled sharply.

_Dr Card came one day, taking me into his arms, taking me away from the darkness and the silence, but I didn't care anymore. There was nothing left to wait for. The visions were dull, muted. I didn't care about them anymore._

_Listening to him make promises. Promises that would be broken just like the promises Carlisle had made._

"_Tell me what you see," he had said, cold lips at my throat. I didn't know why I'd tried to see. I didn't _want_ to see anymore. It just brought heartache and sorrow._

_Fire. Fire everywhere. Hearing him throw that aside, persisting. Insisting on me finding the faces I hadn't seen in years. The faces that the chair had ripped away._

_His beautiful face, smiling as his eyes seemed to caress me, gentle hands holding me close. Honey eyes melting into mine, blond hair falling into his face with careless elegance. Lips pressing against my skin, his smooth voice thick with adoration as he said my name._

_I couldn't help the smile forming on my lips. "Jasper…"_

"He made her tell him what she saw in the future," Edward continued quietly. "Fire. That was all she could see, and he still kept pushing. Sounded practically obsessed." He paused. "And then she saw you again, Jasper."

_The fires were there. So close, so strong. Like they were in my own body. Maybe if I just endured this like the shocks, it would all finally be over and I could be free to find my beautiful stranger. And then maybe I would finally live with him, because I knew, I just _knew_, that my beautiful stranger wouldn't abandon me as Carlisle had. He would stay with me, he would love me and protect me until the end of our days._

"James set fire to the area, to get rid of the doctor's corpse," Edward said with a sudden hiss. "He didn't even bother moving Alice. The flames came within inches of her. She didn't realize, of course, she was in the middle of the transformation by then…" He stopped as the visions began to slow and I started to become a little more aware of my surroundings and my mind's contents. "I hope you realize, Jasper, you are about the only person she thought about at all."

Jasper kissed me again, as I nestled in closer, choosing not to bring myself to attention. "Love you, too, Lissy," he repeated softly. "Every day of forever, baby…"

Finally, I opened my eyes and focused them on Edward's stricken face. "Hi," I said quietly, seeing behind him the rest of our family, anxious looks on their faces.

Emmett was the first to speak, a grin spreading across his face as he sat down on the edge of the bed to say affectionately, "Welcome back to the land of the undead, Allie," and tousled my hair.

"You had us all in a panic, Alice," Bella agreed.

Nessie peeked her adorable little face out from behind Rosalie just then, eyes wide with concern. She fought her way through the tangle of adults and climbed up onto the bed, reaching for me expectantly.

Smiling, squeezing Jasper's knee in reassurance as I felt him stiffen behind me, doubtless concerned that my pain was going to start again if Nessie forced her own thoughts onto me; I let Nessie crawl in close and touch my throat.

She showed me her own interpretations of the last three days. Showed me the image of Jasper next to me, his face twisted in pain and fright. Me, screaming and writhing in pain on the bed while Rosalie, Bella and Esme were trying to keep me from hurting myself, and Edward, Emmett and Carlisle holding back Jasper, whose face was tortured and panicked. The wolves, taking her out to play in the woods for a day so that she didn't have to watch me anymore. She had been scared for me.

"I'm sorry that I scared you, Nessie," I apologized. "I'm sorry that I scared everybody," I added as Nessie smiled at me and flung herself into my arms. She withdrew after a moment, and putting her hand to my throat again, showed me the sight of my eyes and Jasper's – both black as tar – and the concern in her image filtered through. She didn't want us to be so thirsty that it hurt. She thought we should go hunting now. The family would still be here when we got back. "Yes, I think you're right, Nessie," I agreed. She beamed at me and returned to Rosalie, reaching out her arms to be picked up.

"Do you feel up to going on a hunt?" Jasper whispered into my ear, a smile making its way across his face as I nodded.

And as we left the house and disappeared into the woods, I could feel his eyes on me, loving me even from a distance. _My_ beautiful stranger, a stranger no more. My Jasper. For every day of forever.

Just liked he'd promised me.


	11. Every Day of Forever: Jasper Hale, 2007

**_Chapter 10: Every Day of Forever (Jasper Hale, 2007)_**

I hadn't realized how painful the flames had been in my throat until just then. When she'd finally, _finally_ opened her eyes and saw me, and I could finally stop worrying.

"Jasper…" she said, her voice the most beautiful, most potent sound in the world to me. I reached for her face, wanting to feel her skin against mine again, but this time she would react when I touched her.

"Hey, Lissy," I said softly, delighted when she smiled at my touch and turned her face into it. "Welcome back," I continued, pulling her in close to kiss her. And I thought that I would never be able to stop… it was like our first night together all over again.

"How long was I out?" she asked softly against my lips, her eyes melting into mine. They were black as night… we should go hunt very soon. I didn't want her thirsty like me.

"Oh, a few days, at least," I said, hoping that she'd leave the subject well enough alone if I kissed her again. But of course, _I_ couldn't resist playing for a little bit of sympathy. "I thought you were never going to wake up. I thought for sure it was going to kill you…" Despite my best efforts, my voice broke. And I had to tell her the thing I hadn't wanted to say. "Baby, don't ever leave me like that again…" I begged, hating how vulnerable it made me sound.

She looked at me again, wrapping her arms around me. "Every day of forever, Jazz. I meant it in 1949, and I mean it now." She snuggled into my hold, happiness spilling out from every part of her.

"Oh, God, Alice, I was so scared…" I whispered, now officially losing the last shred of my masculine pride and dignity. "When you started screaming like that…"

"I was screaming?" she asked, her head still buried against my chest.

"Screaming bloody murder," I confirmed, rubbing her back. "And when you started reacting as though you were human again, and Carlisle –"

She froze at the sound of his name, and I could sense her emotions change from content to distressed in a flash. "Lissy?" I sent her some calmness and some soothing, hoping to stop her distress before it got out of hand and _I_ started panicking. "Lissy, talk to me."

She only moaned, her eyes shutting tightly and her muscles tensing again. I recognized the expression…

"Is it the visions, sweetheart?" I asked softly, letting her bury her face into my chest.

"Too much… too many…" she hissed. "Can't think…"

"Shh…" I whispered, rubbing her back again. I lifted her to a sitting position, pulling her into my lap to rock her comfortingly. After 59 years of loving her so much it hurt, I knew how to deal with the overloads.

It would happen sometimes, if she was trying to watch too much, if there was too much going on in the family. She would stop whatever it was she was doing, unable to do anything else but stay motionless in that spot, trying to process all of the images crowding her head.

"Alice…" I whispered into her ear, keeping her grounded in _this_ reality. I knew she could hear me. "Stay with me, Alice…"

"Jasper?" I looked up briefly to see Carlisle and Esme.

"Is she awake?" Carlisle asked, concern in his eyes as he watched Alice's motionless body.

"Yeah," I answered. "But there's too much information in her mind. All the memories, all the visions, they're all hitting her now. She can't process anything…" She moaned again, and I tightened my hold on her. "I'm here, Lissy…" I whispered into her ear.

Everybody else started arriving just then, Bella asking worriedly, "What's wrong, Alice?"

She moaned yet again, pressing her forehead against my neck.

"She's got too much information in her mind, Bella," I explained again. "There's only so much a brain can process at one time."

Edward stepped inside, and the look of pain that flitted across his face confirmed my theory. "Okay, I'm sorry," he said quietly, backing out of the room with a frown still on his face. "I can't be here. God, I'm tuning her out and it's giving me a headache…"

Carlisle caught his arm as he passed by. "Edward, can you tell what she's seeing?" The look on his face was confusing. He was… scared? Hurting? Guilty?

For the briefest moment, I turned my attention from Alice in order to focus on Carlisle. His emotions were no less conflicting than his expression.

Edward stopped, his frown deepening as he sifted through the images in Alice's mind. Then he sighed. "The shock treatments. They would make her blind, make the visions stop for a while. It terrified her, because sometimes the images wouldn't come back. Every time they shocked her, she lost more." He stopped for a second. "She held onto that vision of you walking into the diner, Jasper, with everything she had."

I doubted that, even being able to read my mind, that Edward could ever truly understand what those words meant to me. That of everything in her life that they were taking away, she wouldn't let them make me disappear.

"I love you," I whispered against her forehead. "I love you…" I looked up again when Edward inhaled sharply. He turned to Carlisle, and I could feel the shock and the… betrayal?

Esme, who had looked ready to die (again) from the romance of it all, stopped smiling, watching Edward as he and Carlisle looked at each other. "Boys?" she asked softly.

Edward was only looking at Carlisle as he said, "You broke your promise." And with that, he turned to leave the room.

Carlisle looked as though he'd been punched in the stomach, flinching as though he'd been physically struck.

Edward stopped for a moment, turning back around to look at me. "He made her tell him what she saw in the future," he said quietly. "Fire. It was all she could see, and he still kept pushing. Sounded practically obsessed." He paused. "And then she saw you again, Jasper."

Figured. Edward knew exactly what I had wanted to hear. To reassure my poor, wounded ego that I was all there had been in her mind at her most difficult time. To know that she was at least half as obsessed with me as I was with her. That before she'd ever met me, before I'd ever touched her face for real, she'd been mine. Always and forever mine.

"Love you, baby," I whispered again into her ear, relaxing slightly as I felt her begin to unwind. They were coming to an end. "Every day of forever…"

Edward recoiled from the next image that flashed into his mind. "James set fire to the area," he hissed. "To get rid of the doctor's corpse. He didn't even bother moving Alice." He stopped for a second, breathing hard. "The flames came within inches of her – she didn't realize it, of course, she was in the middle of the transformation by then…" He stopped again, and I felt Alice stir in my arms. Then Edward looked at me, our truce back in place with the re-addition of Alice to the land of the conscious. I supposed that I couldn't ask for a better brother for Alice. Edward _was_ maybe second only to me on the list of people Alice loved. "I hope you realize, Jasper, you are about the only person that she thought about at all."

Alice snuggled closer, and I realized that my sneaky little minx was trying to avoid attention. I smiled slightly and kissed her. "Love you too, Lissy," I whispered into her ear. "Every day of forever, baby…"

She opened her eyes after that, looking at Edward, who still looked stricken. "Hi," she said softly.

Emmett was the first to speak. Grinning at her as he tousled her hair affectionately, he said, "Welcome back to the land of the undead, Allie." He wasn't such a bad brother for her either – I trusted both him and Edward with her, the rare times that I couldn't be there. I supposed that Alice hadn't done such a bad job at getting us into this family – we could've done a lot worse.

"You had us all in a panic, Alice," Bella spoke up.

Nessie came just then, climbing up onto the bed as she reached for Alice. Instinctively, I tensed: could Alice handle having Nessie's thoughts forced onto her overworked mind?

Alice's hand slipped back onto my knee, squeezing lightly as she allowed Nessie to scramble into her lap, small hand touching her throat. After a few moments, she stopped and Alice smiled. "I'm sorry that I scared you, Nessie," she said as Nessie threw her arms around Alice's neck. "I'm sorry that I scared everybody." Nessie put her hand to Alice's throat again, eyes still wide with concern. "Yes, I think you're right, Nessie," Alice said, smiling as the little girl beamed and dashed back to Rosalie.

Enough was enough. I wanted out of this house. I wanted to be alone with her, and I knew the perfect premise. "Do you feel up to going on a hunt?" I whispered into her ear, smiling as she nodded.

I had to say something to calm Esme before we left, though. The poor woman was falling apart on the inside, even if her face didn't betray it. "We'll be back," I assured her.

Esme gave me a grateful smile as Alice and I left.

*~*~*

I couldn't seem to tear my eyes away from her perfect form as she dashed ahead of me into the forest. God, was it possible to love somebody this much?

She turned to look at me, and I melted. She was mine. All mine, always mine.

Every day of forever.


	12. Epilogue: Dr Carlisle Cullen, 2007

**_Epilogue (Dr Carlisle Cullen, 2007)_**

Jasper and Alice had been gone for three days before any of us began to worry. It wasn't unusual for them to disappear for a few days while they were hunting, so nobody had thought to question it.

I spent the three days in agony, wishing Alice would come back so that I could make my explanations. Maybe a little more like my apologies. I figured I owed her that, first, before I owed anybody else explanations.

Edward was beside himself with anger at me. I could tell he was spending copious amounts of time picking through my thoughts, trying to find more ammunition against me. Trying to figure out why I'd done it.

I couldn't blame him: Alice was without a doubt his favourite sister, and everybody guarded her with the same ferociousness that they guarded Renesmee. Even Rosalie was known to jump to her defense – and Rosalie doesn't jump to _anybody's_ defense unless it's Emmett.

He was angry because I had been the cause of the single most torturous event in Alice's life: not the day her parents had disowned her, not the day she'd begun shock treatments, not the day she'd been changed. The day she'd realized that I had chosen, _chosen _and not forgotten. I'd broken my promise – the one thing that she'd trusted would happen when I had left her at the MSIH in 1909: that I would come back for her. The one thing that she had ever trusted not because she saw, but because she was told.

And I had decided to not come back.

"Carlisle, maybe we should phone them," Esme murmured as she slipped into my office one early evening, watching the front drive wistfully. "Make sure they're all right…"

I looked up from the new copy of the medical journal I was trying to lose myself in (unsuccessfully). "I'm sure they're fine, Esme. You know how Jasper and Alice are."

"I _know_…" Esme said reluctantly, tugging the journal out of my hands and sliding onto my lap. "But I'm worried. She was still so out of it when they left…"

"Do you really think Jasper would let anything happen to her?" I asked softly, brushing her hair back from her face.

"Well, I _know_, but…" Finally, she sighed and asked what I knew everybody had been dying to ask for the last three days. "Why is Edward so mad at you? You had no way of knowing when the other one would turn her…"

I sighed. "Esme, darling, I don't really want to talk to anybody else before I've spoken to Alice. She's the one who needs to hear it first."

She watched my face for a moment before she leaned in, kissed me and said, "All right. We can wait. I know you didn't do it on purpose, Carlisle."

The knife jabbed just a little harder.

I heard the sound of Edward talking indistinctly on his cell phone downstairs, and my heart sank. Maybe I wasn't going to get the chance to apologize to Alice.

Maybe the apology was coming 90 years too late.

It only took a few seconds for Edward to come storming into the office. "Well, now you've done it," he snapped at me. "They're not coming home." He paused, face softening for a second as he turned his attention to my stricken wife. "Both of them asked me to apologize to you for them, Esme." Then he returned his death-glare to me.

"Jasper asked you to tell me something, didn't he?" I asked quietly, as Esme closed her hand around mine.

Edward nodded. "He says 'Don't come after us this time. You've done enough damage.'"


	13. SNEAKPEEK: Forgiving the Unforgiveable

A/N: Here's a sneak peek at the prologue for Forgiving the Unforgiveable, the sequel to The Little Girl Who Saw Things!

*~*~*

"Alice," I said softly as I entered the house. "Alice?"

She was sitting cross-legged on the couch, her face furrowed in concentration as she watched something in her mind. She'd done this on a regular basis for the last few years – still watching the family's future, still looking for danger. I'd suggested that we go back, but she still refused. She said that she liked it being just the two of us for the moment. I knew better.

It hadn't been as good as I was hoping, to be away from the family, alone with Alice. Maybe it was just because of the circumstances surrounding our departure, but there always seemed to be the ever-present sadness.

Sighing, I knelt down in front of her, grabbing her hands to pull her out of the vision. "Lissy…" She came back to Earth, looking at me in surprise. "Are you sure you don't want to go back?" I asked again, knowing that she'd say the same thing that she said this morning when I had asked.

"No. I like it here with you," she replied. But there was a wistful expression in her eyes, a slight hint of longing in her emotions, a little uncertainty in her voice, which all told me a different story.

She missed them. She missed Esme, Edward, Bella, Emmett, Nessie, Rosalie and even the wolves. She just couldn't face Carlisle – she told me that she thought she was being ridiculously petty about the whole affair, but she just couldn't seem to get past her anger and her mistrust.

"Lissy, maybe we should go back. Just to visit, not necessarily to stay," I added quickly when she looked at me in exasperation. Maybe she'd change her mind once she was back home.


End file.
